


Champion

by Kiliflower



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23932021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiliflower/pseuds/Kiliflower
Summary: An anthology series dedicated to telling the stories of each of the seventy-five victors of The Hunger Games.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Katniss & Peeta's Children/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. Prologue

“ – really don’t see the point,” grumbles Johanna.

I find myself tuning in and out of the conversation at hand. Johanna and Beetee are hotly contesting the inclusion of the Tour of Remembrance into the Liberation celebrations. 

Peeta is buried in his sketchbook, opting between hues of pinks, oranges and yellows. It’s a colorful, optimistic palette – today is a good day. Painting and baking. This is how I gage his mood, more often than I care to admit. 

But I really don’t want to think about us today. 

I hope that Greasy Sae has remembered to feed Buttercup while I’m gone.

“Well, I think we should vote on it,” asks Beetee.

Johanna rolls her eyes. “Right, because that’s worked so well in the past.” 

In this moment, I want to remind Johanna that she voted in favor of the Capitol Games. 

However, I know this would not go down well, so I stay silent. 

Besides, so did I. 

“I know that President Paylor encourages it,” says Beetee. 

Enobaria fixes him with a peculiar look. “And why is that?”

“She thinks it will be healthy for us.”

Johanna snorts. Haymitch, who has remained silent, scoffs loudly.

“Healthy. That’s us alright, the picture of health,” he laughs, taking a swig from his flask. 

Annie speaks up, her voice trembling. “Well, I want to remember them. Not just Finnick and Mags, but the others. And the ones who… who…”

“Didn’t make it back,” Johanna finishes and Annie moans, burying her face in her hands. 

Another vaguely familiar victor from District 4 wraps his arm around Annie and shakes his head.

“Nice one, Jo.”

She shrugs in response.

It’s Annie’s point that gets to me most and I find myself speaking up. 

“I think it’s a good idea.” 

The rest of the room stares at me. 

“Well,” I say, a little too defensively. “I didn’t know the other victors like you did. Not personally. And considering a lot of them died because of me, you could say I owe them.”

Enobaria’s mouth tightens. “I’m glad to hear you say it, Everdeen.” 

Johanna throws her hands up. “Oh, well, if the Mocking-girl On Fire deems it so, who are the rest of us to defy her?”

I shoot her daggers, which she returns with a grin. 

“So, is it decided?” Beetee asks. 

The rest of the room mumbles consent. 

“Good. Well, as it happens, I began some research – “

Johanna mutters an expletive.

“– and I think it would be good to begin as soon as we can. Get ahead of the tour, so to speak.”

I’m a little overwhelmed. “Alright. Where do we start?”

Beetee looks over at Enobaria, whose face lights up with her bright, fanged smile.


	2. Telemachus

Telemachus opened his eyes.

It was as if his world were smothered in pitch, bar the playful lines of yellow-white light peeking through the cracked ceiling. They were his sole concept of time. He had counted two suns and a moon since he had been brought here.

He had fallen asleep in the same position as a new-born babe, curled up as small as he could make himself – his long, muscular frame did not allow for small enclosures such as these. His chin and knees were tucked into his chest, the edges of his feet tracing the soft stone floor. 

His muscles and back ached painfully, but he did not dare raise an objection to the guards that stood without. Though their faces were hidden and their attire the familiar white of the Peacekeepers, their forms were different. One was lanky and high-pitched, the other stout and with a rumbling voice. 

Telemachus had heard a woman complain to them one night in a high, shrill voice. Squeak had seen to her. After that, Telemachus decided it was in his best interests to not interfere with their fun.  
He pushed himself up from the floor and looked around.

Nothing had changed since the arena. Though his sight was limited, he had felt his way around his miserable accommodation upon arrival using nothing but his touch. It was a matchbox cell, hewn from stone and straw and dirt. Taller than it was long, it enforced on its occupant total discomfort, and Telemachus often found himself sitting straight-backed against the wall, peering out into nothing and saying less than he saw. 

The roof was damp and dripping, to a point where it frayed the nerves. The occasional vermin nibbled at his skin, day and night. If the guards hadn’t kept Telemachus provisioned with water and bread, he would gladly have eaten the rats. There was little he could do with the earthworms. 

Upon waking, the first thing that always struck him was the smell – urine and faeces, vomit and sweat, all mingled together into a hideously pervasive stench. It attacked his nostrils and Telemachus instinctively let out a retch of disgust. 

He crawled towards the wall, hands fumbling for the small slit he knew was in the roughly hewn concrete behind him. It was a feeble excuse for a window, but it would do. Telemachus pressed his face to the cool plaster, trying desperately to breathe in a sliver of fresh air.

Next came the sounds.

It was a gross, pathetic motley of whimpering and weeping, pleading and prayers. Each of them all had their own methods of keeping the madness at bay here – from salacious words spoken through dry, cracked lips to tear-stained faces covered in grime. 

He felt that he should pity them, console them even, but he felt even more strongly that they all had earned their place in this kennel – they were being punished, turncoats and rebel-spawn and neutralists alike. 

The whispers of sedition had existed for as long as Telemachus could remember. The hateful, gaunt faces of the quarriers and masons and builders, with their broken backs and missing limbs. The hundreds of families that lost their sons and daughters to the building of another extravagant pet project funded by the Capitol. The regime that turned a blind eye to the raids and rapes committed in the small mountain villages, the disappearance of civilians who expressed criticism of their totalitarian government. 

The people were being pushed around by a Capitol that had once cared for them so very much. 

Until District 13 pushed back.

It didn’t take long for the rest of the country to rise up, bear arms and commit countless atrocities in the name of reformation. 

In District 4, rebel submarines blew up unassuming Capitol cruise boats. 

The crops were set ablaze in District 11 and the district burned red and orange for weeks, the smoking fields visible from miles and miles away. 

Entire buildings in District 8 were razed to the ground, crushing civilians, Peacekeepers and soldiers alike. 

Hovercraft engineers and pilots of District 6 led air bombings on the Capitol, hijacking trains to sneak vanguards of soldiers beyond the district’s perimeter. 

And thus, the war had begun. 

District 2 had been the most loyal, the most supportive, the most dedicated to maintaining the Capitol’s hold on power. The Folami family – mother, father, little Telemachus and his elder brother – had been advocates for the Capitol yet remained confident that a compromise could be reached. 

However, the Capitol did not believe in negotiating with terrorists, and the rebels had come too far to turn back now. Marbletown, the district’s largest commune, was half-city and half barracks and the hub of all military action. It was also home to the district’s impenetrable Mountain Fortress, or the Fort as the locals called her – she was the pride of the district and nigh impossible to breach externally.

It was there, on the rocky slopes of the Fort, that the rebels fought and shot and screamed and bled and died. Unable to breach the district – and in turn the Capitol – their corpses littered the mountainside, carrion for the crows and lions that flew and skulked through the skies and caves. 

Their attempt to infiltrate the Mountain Fortress had failed and their people had paid the price. 

Some rebels ran, with most of them caught and put to death. A handful chose to brave the barren hills and risk the unbearable thirst, razor-sharp rocks and rock-path tribes than own up to what they had done, scourge their dishonour and face the noose with their conscience cleansed. 

District 2 was not cruel, they understood that even a traitor was permitted their rites, and for those who confessed their treason, an unmarked grave was the best one could hope for.  
The Capitol had been less forgiving. The rebel leaders had been publicly humiliated, flogged and hanged, their bloated bodies tied up around the districts, pockets of flies gathering on the white-blue skin, purple lips parted in death. 

Once Telemachus had no more home to go to and nothing to fight for, he made his way to the square in Marbletown. He had stumbled past these bodies, half a corpse himself, unable to tear his gaze away from all the death.

The road was lined with the remains of those who had died fleeing or accessing the city. They had died of infection, dehydration, untreated wounds. They had been his friendly neighbours, boisterous classmates, encouraging teachers. 

He saw his father’s peers, his mother’s confidantes, round-cheeked girls, ruffled-haired boys. But that had been another time – they had all of them proven to be traitors, their flames of rebellion extinguished at long last.

District 13 was destroyed, obliterated into nothing more than a smoking husk. 

The war was over, and the Capitol had won. 

This sense of victory did not extend to the districts. The new regime had come for them all, its hammer of justice swift with retribution as it built the foundations of the new Panem. 

In the darkness of Telemachus’ cell, the memories began to flood back. 

_“Hello, little one,” the man purred. His face was heavily scarred with a stained eyepatch and a mouth full of yellow teeth. The only visible eye was black as coal and as jarring as his scars._

_“Come out now. Don’t be scared. We’re here to recruit you.”_

_Telemachus had been cowering under his bed in the cottage he’d called home, his knees shaking, his bottom lip quivering. He could feel his heartbeat like thunder in his ears, his ragged breathing a storm. The stranger had dragged him out from his hiding place by his hair, kicking and screaming and biting, until a swift punch to the face silenced him._

_“He’s old enough. Put him with the other trainees,” the scarred man said._

_He was thrown into a wooden cart that smelled of dung and sheep, next to three boys who stared blankly ahead of them, their eyes red, their rags – clothes – covered in filth._

_Telemachus’ last memories of his home were his mother screaming his name to the whoops and grunts and wolf whistles of a handful of strange men. Her cries echoed in the valley around her, bouncing back each time with a sickening clarity as Telemachus’ small cottage home disappeared, the sound of pillage faded, and the summer night fell still._

A deep, gravelly voice dragged Telemachus from his thoughts. 

“Oi, you. On your feet.” 

Telemachus stared out at the short, robust human shape in front of him. It was faceless, anonymous – a shadow, and nothing more. 

But the shadow had given him a command… and a good soldier obeyed. 

He rocked back, then forth, and on to his knees. He tried to stand, but his legs collapsed from beneath him instantly as the blood came rushing back into his legs. It was a queer feeling, as if he were being pricked by sharp pins across his affected flesh. 

The voice grunted. “I said stand up, properly, or you’ll end up not needing those legs after all.”

He needn’t have threatened him. Telemachus had risen, forced to stop and arch his back in order to fit within the confines of his cell. He looked up at the shadow through hooded eyes, awaiting his next order. 

Another, higher voice squeaked out from further down the catacomb. 

“Put on your torch. I wanna get a good look at him. You know, before.”

There was the sound of helmets being removed and a burst of brightness. Telemachus squinted at the sudden light, raising his hand to block it out.

The men’s gaze lingered on Telemachus. The Peacekeepers’ eyes raked across him, beginning at his feet and running all the way to his face, where the curiosity ended and gave way to judgement – and something else, something Telemachus couldn’t put his finger on.

In the light of his torch, Telemachus could get a closer look at his captors, the shadows that had now taken physical form. 

The first, Stout, had beetle-black eyes and a poor attempt at facial hair, with the result being a patchy fuzz that covered his paunchy face and both of his chins. His frown lines were etched with dust, with crow’s feet and dimples, but he looked older far older than Telemachus had initially suspected.

Squeak, the second Peacekeeper, seemed to be Telemachus’ age with a long neck, sharp nose and teeth too big for his mouth. His skin was red, blotchy and dotted with pimples and whiteheads. There was a desperation in his manner, an urgency, that suggested he was eager to please and impress those around him. 

Telemachus continued to glare through the bars of his cell at the guards. 

“Does he talk?” asked Stout, striding over to the cage and folding his arms. 

Squeak shook his head. “No. Nothing since the Games.” 

“Maybe he’s in shock.” 

Stout reached into his pocket and removed from it a square of chocolate.

Telemachus stared at it. Even before, chocolate had been an untouchable delicacy. It existed only behind the colourful, illustrated windows of the district confectionary in the market-town Sunfair. The only patrons it had were those who could afford to spend money on caramels and lollipops – this meant their business relied on visiting Capitol holidaymakers.

It was now just another mound of rubble, blown to pieces in the name of Panem. 

“You know what this is?” Stout asked, scoffing as he tossed the chocolate into his mouth and chewed on it noisily. 

He swallowed, shut his eyes in pleasure, then opened them again to leer down at Telemachus.

“Stand up straight.”

Telemachus tried, but as he did, the strain on his back and neck proved too much and he winced in pain. 

Stout’s face twisted. “Are you deaf? Get up!”

_“I said, get up!”_

_A man with a scraggly black beard swung at Telemachus, landing a blow to his right cheek._

_“I – I can’t.” The little boy stared at the metal blade in front of him._

_A wild dog laying beneath him whined piteously, its left foreleg made a bloody mess by the hidden trap it had strayed unwittingly into._

_It was afraid, impossibly afraid. Telemachus understood it. He pitied it._

_The older man knelt to meet him. “You use that sword, or I’ll give it to someone else to wipe your ass with.”_

_Telemachus nodded. He dug his feet into the earth, locked his knees and lifted the steel as high as he could, his arms quivering as he held it tightly by the hilt._

_The metal was heavy and unfamiliar in his twelve-year-old hands._

_“Now, soldier.”_

_He closed his eyes and brought the knife down._

As reality took him, Telemachus was met with the whooping guffaws and thunderstorm laughter of the guards. It went on and on and on, and Telemachus desperately wanted it to stop. It was loud, far too loud, and he wanted the uninterrupted silence of his cell back to himself. He lowered his head, trying to push the noise out as far as he could. 

Then, came the sound of more footsteps, many more, and a third voice. It was older, more dignified.

“What are you doing?” 

Telemachus peered out into the darkness. The two guards had fallen silent, one with his head bowed in embarrassment and the other stiff and twitching nervously.

The origin of the third voice remained a mystery, but it had an air of authority and assurance about it. It was a voice that demanded respect and did not suffer fools or incompetence. Telemachus liked that. His father had been that way. 

“You. The keys.”

There was a fumbling of padded gloves and the rattling of keys. The high-pitched voice muttered numerous apologies. After a dull metal ‘clunk’, the padlock to the cell’s door detached with a sharp, satisfying click. 

The cage swung open invitingly, teasingly. Telemachus didn’t move a muscle. 

With a sigh, a middle-aged man stepped into the light of the guard’s torch. 

He had a shaved head, crooked nose and round, icy-blue eyes. His brow was heavy, and his lower jaw sagged, reminiscent of the hounds that the police force used to scent-track drugs and explosives. A tattoo of a serpent began under his right eye, its tail winding across his cheek and down the back of his neck. He wore his Peacekeeper white, though his uniform was adorned with badges in an array of colours – plum, navy, dark green, crimson and many more.

He was a commander. Telemachus’ respect for the man rose instantly.

“Hello, Telemachus. My name is Mascazel. I am here to be your escort, by order of President Tigellinus Thorn.” 

At the mention of the president’s name, Telemachus looked at Mascazel, curious. 

Tigellinus Thorn was a name know throughout Panem and it belonged to a man of semi-iconic status in District 2. Before the Dark Days, he had been the head of the Capitol’s military, a lieutenant and a war hero. His tactics had kept the rebel forces at bay within the inner districts and his decision to reinforce and pour his defensive strategy into the Fort led to the eventual quell of the revolution. A born orator, he had succeeded his predecessor after a landslide vote amongst the heads of the loyalist movement in each district – or so Telemachus had heard.

Mascazel pulled his lips together in a piteous expression. “Please, Mr. Folami. Do not harbor under the illusion that this is a request.”

He extended his hand and Telemachus saw that it was splashed in burns, the skin red and leathery, more than one fingernail missing. He looked back up into the man’s eyes. They were cold and apathetic, but they were honest and hid no lies. 

Telemachus had been given his orders. 

Slowly, he began to move. The sensation of needles in his legs had dissipated, but they now felt like slabs of cement, separate from his own body – he saw them go, one foot in front of the other, but he could not associate them as belonging to him. 

Once Telemachus emerged from the cell, the older man lowered his torch and briskly stepped aside to the left. Squeak and Stout stood to his right, their fingers brushing up against the thick, clunky handguns secured tightly to their belts. 

They are frightened of me, Telemachus realized suddenly. 

He looked at them, one after the other. The iron and threats that had once been used to restrain him had gone and now their faces were contorted with fear, their bodies half-frozen in a sudden rush of adrenaline. 

Their terror passed across the room, from them into Telemachus.

Something stirred within him, a sleeping beast, ravenous and angry. It was not unfamiliar. 

“Follow me, Telemachus,” ordered Mascazel, turning on his heel.

Telemachus bowed his head and obeyed. 

_“Follow me,” grunted the regiment commander, motioning his men forward with a wave of his hand._

_Telemachus felt the surge of movement around him, detaching himself from the blood-curdling keening of the wounded rebels and the thick, black smoke that slithered through the street as if it were an enormous, hungry serpent._

_He could feel himself sweating profusely, hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears, his breath coming short and fast through the heat of his helmet. His squad, Capital-208, were charged with removing the latest influx of rebel factions within the district’s largest city._

_Telemachus hastily located the magazine of his assault rifle and refilled it with cartridges, his gloved fingers making the action far clumsier than it ought to have been._

_“Keep moving, eyes open and stay together!”_

_The regiment moved inward into Marbletown, weaving through the intricate alleyways and side-streets that had made the city’s design so widely renowned throughout all Panem._

_Telemachus ducked under low-sweeping shopfronts, stumbled over and sidled around titanic chunks of debris, pulled himself free from the grasp of wailing women and children, and focused on his commander’s voice, the sole source of rationale in the midst of the chaos._

_Before long, they swept out into an open clearing near the perimeter of the city’s second level. There was neither sight nor sound of another soul among them in the open marble courtyard, unlike the hellish landscape of the city’s outer ring through which they had just traveled._

_As his fellow men rushed forward, Telemachus’ found himself hesitating, and he fell back._

_His commander turned around and raised his gruff, authoritative voice to a shout._

_“Folami! What are you –"_

_There was a flare of red and white, a wave of sound and Telemachus felt himself flying._

The blinding light of Telemachus’ past was swiftly replaced by the murky darkness of his present – the Capitol’s catacombs. 

The long, winding damp corridors had been built long ago, before the metropolis had grown bloated and neon and ridiculed their district brethren with silly, airy accents. 

The first builders had begun with the halls and cells near the surface where Telemachus had resided, but future generations had dug deeper, for reasons unknown. There were some who insisted that the catacombs led out of the Capitol and into the districts. A few claimed they had been made for the looting of buried treasure. Others argue that it was a practical solution to a growing problem – there was always more room required for prisoners. The more eccentric characters would insist that a great, cavernous city had been constructed beneath their own metropolis and a man-eating army was being built beneath their feet, one that would one day come back to scour them all and reclaim their own land for themselves. 

Regardless of the reason behind their creation, the catacombs were a spider’s web below what remained of the central Capitol, notoriously complex with numerous cross overs and false ends. 

Indeed, it would not be incorrect to describe them as a labyrinth more so than catacombs, for much of it was unexplored. To issue a search team would cost more money, induce more labour and take more time than any government had considered worthy. 

The upper levels continued to be used for the housing and containment of high-priority prisoners – malcontents, progressives, suspected rebels, outspoken personalities, any citizen who had expressed disagreement with the regime had found themselves here, with very few returning.

Telemachus thought that most of them deserved it. 

Mascazel’s heavy breathing and grinding voice stirred Telemachus from his thoughts as he attempted to fill up the silence between them. 

“Your family must be proud of you.”

Telemachus thought of them. 

His parents – his mother, shy and matronly, the soothing influence in a houseful of passionate men – his father, tall, quiet and imposing, who ran his house firmly and with an iron fist. 

Telemachus could almost see them, their faces swimming before his eyes - his mother’s doe-like eyes and gentle expression. His father’s strong jaw and tight-lipped smile. It was an apparition, an illusion, but Telemachus would have reached out his hand and touched them, if he could. 

Yet despite his instinct, he had no strength, and in the space of a moment, they were gone, leaving Telemachus alone with Mascazel in the stairwell. 

They continued to climb, and Telemachus continued to think. 

He tried not to concern himself with it, of the weakness that ran through his blood, but the more furiously he sought to suppress his anger and resentment the more excruciating it became to bear.

It had all begun with his elder brother, the first-born Folami – Telegonus. He had been a brooding, careless child whose rough-and-tumble nature led him to scraps with his male peers.  
Telemachus would clutch his mother’s apron and watch in admiration as his father berated a bruised, beat-up Telegonus who looked thoroughly pleased with himself. Afterwards, he would steal Telemachus into a corner and tell him the full details of the match. 

Despite their wildly conflicting dispositions, Telemachus and Telegonus had one another’s backs through thick and thin. If one fell short, the other pulled his weight to over-compensate. Had there been a lie told, the other would fabricate accordingly. They played wingman for one another’s romantic interests (though this seemed to largely be for the elder of the two, who was in the throes of adolescence). It seemed that, for the longest time, the brothers had been the best of friends and nothing had tested their resolve. It had been a perfect picture of what a good district family was meant to be.

Until, Telegonus – in his brash, altruistic form – began to look around him and see how things could be better. It began with his father – he was older, less spritely, and could not work the same hours with the same enthusiasm as he once did, but lived in constant fear of the Capitol’s reaction if he and his men did not meet their standards. 

As he ventured outside his home, he learned of the injustice, the sickness, the poverty, the violence that accumulated in the city by the Peacekeeper’s brute force and random searches. He discovered the secret hangings and gang rapes in the Bare Forests, the inns of Sunfair. 

Telemachus’ brother had begun to feel, for the first time, that the Capitol could be wrong. 

This did not bode well with the upstanding Folami tradition of faultless, unshakable patriotism. After a blaring argument and physical fall-out, he was banished from the home, his name forbidden to be spoken, and Telemachus found himself resenting – no, detesting – his brother’s decision to support the newly founded District 2 rebellion in favor of his family. 

As the other districts took up arms, all able-bodied boys and men aged twelve and above were required to join the Capitol-2 military forces. Any person who resisted would be committing treason and face imprisonment, awaiting execution. 

Telemachus desperately wanted to join the war effort, prove that they still had a son that was loyal to them, and sneaked out one morning to sign up, but at a scrawny eight years old and not considered fit for battle, he was turned away. 

Furious, he returned home, intent on seeking out another form of service, only to find his weeping mother there to tell him that his father had left that morning to find Telemachus and had not returned since. 

If Telegonus had never left, Telemachus would not have tried so desperately to prove himself, and his father would not have sought him out, only to disappear for good.

It was all his fault.

Then, Telemachus was taken, and in the end, he never discovered what became of his father, mother, or brother. 

Before long, the thin, claustrophobic staircases began to widen. Mascazel led them here and there, left and right, up and down, through archways and passages. 

Telemachus did not recognize this path. He had not been brought to his previous cell this way. The walls, once devoid of naught but torches, began to sport glass-stained windows through which radiant beams of colourful light burst. Telemachus squinted and growled in response to the sudden change in environment. 

Mascazel chuckled derisively as he pulled up short in front of a large set of oaken doors that bore the seal of Panem, embedded into their wooden panels.

Telemachus bowed his head, pressed his forefinger and thumb together, touched them to his lips, and made a circular motion across his forehead, mouth and heart. The foreman’s cross, it was called. It was a sign to express that he was devoted to his country in his thoughts, his words and his soul. It had been a custom, begun long ago, for the district to demonstrate respect. 

Though its significance had been subdued and its use waned across the decades, the founding families of District 2 – Folami, Slade, Mason – had insisted on its continuance. 

Mascazel moved to open the door, paused, and turned to Telemachus. 

“Are you ready?”

_“Are you ready?” The soft, tired voice came from a girl, her dark hair matted with filth and lice, the lines of her face exacerbated with grime and sweat._

_Telemachus could see that she had traditional District 2 features – dark hair and eyes, sallow skin, a heavy brow. She clung to the rusted bars of her cell, her lips chapped, her knuckles white._

_She was the grandniece of a known district rebel and had not stopped attempting to engage with Telemachus since the Reaping._

_He lifted his head. “Ready for what?”_

_The girl licked her lips. “For tomorrow. You’re going to fight, aren’t you?”_

_Telemachus said nothing, and the girl’s tone grew more urgent._

_“We could work together, you know. You and me. Make sure the winner is from Two.”_

_A burst of hoarse, dry laughter escaped Telemachus. He leaned in the direction of the girl._

_“I don’t work with traitors,” he told her, the anger in his voice palpable._

Telemachus nodded, and Mascazel pushed open the doors. 

It was nothing like Telemachus had ever seen before – an airy, grand, lavish entrance hall, flooded with light and adorned with a plethora of interior decorations. A crystal candelabra swung from the ceiling, fine works of art adorned the printed walls, and a sweeping imperial staircase led to the upper floor. 

Beyond that, it sported ceramic vases of colourful, exotic plants, transparent bowls of ripe, luscious fruit, busts and gold-inlaid quotes of presidents past. It was incredible that – wherever they were – had survived the worst of the wartime destruction. 

The entire room was aesthetically exceptional. Telemachus felt immediately out of place.

“Where are we?” 

It was the first time he had spoken in days. Mascazel shot him a sharp look of surprise. 

“You are in the manse of President Thorn.” He cleared his throat. “Follow me. You have an appointment.”

Mascazel took Telemachus up the winding left-hand stair, and he ran his hand along the smooth, cold maple banister. The wood had originated in the lumber district, no doubt, but District 2 had its own sugar maple trees that produced a watery, sweet sap that could be turned into syrup once boiled. Telemachus had tried it once, long ago, and the memory led to an acute stinging feeling in the pit of his stomach. He banished the thought from his mind. 

Instead, Telemachus began to wonder what President Thorn could possibly want with him. 

He had done all that he could for his homeland, district and country united. Was the point of this meeting to thank him for his service? If that was the case, why him? There had been thousands of soldiers, throughout Panem – including Telemachus – who had laid their lives and souls on the line to protect everything that Thorn and his administration stood for. 

Or, if not for reasons of gratitude, was he to be further punished for the treachery of his brother’s acts? He had had nothing to do with Telegonus’ decision. He, his father, his mother, each generation of the Folami clan had been unflinchingly devoted to a united Panem.

Still, the blood of a traitor ran in his veins, and if left unchecked could be disastrous. No son or daughter of Telemachus would replicate Telegonus’ path, but the lingering fear of a dissident, extremist Folami on a distant branch of their family tree petrified Telemachus.

Unless… 

At the top of the staircase, the two men passed an ornate hanging mirror.

From out of the corner of his eye, Telemachus caught sight of his reflection. 

He was covered in blood. 

_There was blood everywhere._

__In his mouth and eyes, on his skin, drenching his plain brown tunic._ _

__

__

_Corpses of district children littered the amphitheater, wide-eyed and gaping and rotting._

_Telemachus couldn’t hear himself think over the deafening roar of the Capitol spectators. In the distance, trumpets blared, loud and shrill. A voice rang out across the arena._

_“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, your victor – Telemachus Folami!”_

_Telemachus’ grip loosened on the hilt of his long-sword and he collapsed to his knees._

_A Peacekeeper pulled him to his feet, and led him from the battle ground, half-dazed, as the crowd cheered his name, waving their hands and stamping their feet._

_Darkness took him, and Telemachus knew no more._

He was filthy, caked in dirt and sweat and gods knew what else. 

The blood on his skin and clothes had dried, some of it beginning to crust and peel, darker on the fabric and splattered in almost artistic patterns, as if with a paintbrush. 

Who had it belonged to? The faces had blurred together, the names unfamiliar and lost to the past. 

Mascazel took him down one last hall to a single, white door with a brass handle. 

“President Thorn is waiting for you,” he said flatly. 

Telemachus took a moment before he pushed the door open gently and stepped inside. 

The President’s showroom was not what he had expected. It had an intimate, earthier ambiance than the rest of the pristine, porcelain-like mansion. The colours ranged from deep, scorched reds to rich, woody browns, even to the roaring fire that burned on a log-fuelled hearth beneath a black mantle that seemed to be shimmering in the dancing flames. 

Next to the fireplace lay a pair of leather wingback armchairs, one of which was empty.

In the other, sat the President of Panem – Tigellinus Thorn. 

For some reason, Telemachus had expected an older, rigid, grumpier man. Yet despite his grey-speckled beard, forehead wrinkles and walrus moustache, Thorn had a young man’s face with laugh lines and sparkling brown eyes. 

It surprised Telemachus to see a war veteran so full of gusto, as Thorn proved to be spritely and animated, bursting into a wide smile as Telemachus approached him, blind-sided by his enthusiasm and burst of energy. 

Thorn took Telemachus’ hand in his, his grip firm and solid. 

“Telemachus! It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, although I daresay we’ve both looked better.” Thorn let out a hearty laugh at his own wit. “Please, take a seat.” 

He motioned to the spare seat with his free hand, and Telemachus sat down promptly. The President leaned back in his own chair, surveying the younger man with a degree of interest. 

“Before we begin, I want to congratulate you on a truly spectacular victory.” 

Telemachus cleared his throat. “I can’t – I don’t remember much of it.”

Thorn raised his eyebrows. “Is that so? Why is that?”

“I suppose I just… got it over with.”

There was a tense silence. Thorn shifted in his seat, cocking his head and looking at Telemachus curiously. 

“You must have so many questions.”

Telemachus moved to speak, hesitated, and then found his voice. 

“Are you going to punish me?” 

Thorn looked positively quizzical, then amused, and shook his head with great vigour. 

“Punish you? Gods, no. What gave you that impression? Has Commander Mascazel been forceful?” 

Telemachus gulped. “I had to be taken into custody after the arena.” 

“For your own protection,” said Thorn swiftly. “I am afraid that a small portion of the Capitol citizenry does not support rewarding the districts in any way, shape or form after everything that has happened. This, unfortunately, extends to The Hunger Games and the position that you have recently assumed.”

“My… position?” 

“As victor,” said Thorn. 

“Victor.” The word felt strange on his lips. “And what are my duties, exactly?” 

Telemachus felt childish as soon as he had said it. Thorn sighed, stood up and moved to the mantle, his back to Telemachus. 

“That’s a substantial question, one to which I fear I cannot give you a definitive answer. 

I often ask myself just that – what does it mean to have influence, to be a leader? Is it the ability to defeat all your enemies until there is none left to threaten everything you hold dear? To stare fear and death in the eye so that your people don't have to? Or does it lie in the simplicity in refusing to give up, even when the odds are not in your favour?” 

He turned back to Telemachus. His speech was measured, posture upright, expression serious. 

For the first time, Telemachus saw the man who had led the Capitol forces forward.

“I want to put that question back to you. What does Telemachus think it means?”

The speed of his answer surprised them both.

“It means making the tough choices,” he said. “Having to do the right thing, no matter what.” 

It was what his father would have said, Telemachus knew. 

President Thorn’s lips curved upward into a satisfied smile. “Yes, Telemachus. I think so too.”

He left the mantle and sidled over to the windowsill, surveying what was beyond. 

“I will be short with you,” he said, and the mood of the room changed instantly. “Panem is on the brink of self-destruction. District 13 has been obliterated – nothing remains but a graveyard of rubble and toxic fumes. We are starting again from the ground up and a single tremor in our resolve can undo whatever progress we make. The wounds of war are still fresh in the public mind – there are a lot of angry people out there.”

Telemachus furrowed his brow in confusion. “But the rebels were defeated. People aren’t happy with that?” 

“For the most part, yes, they are. However, the next decade – hells, decades – will be most telling. We cannot do nothing and act surprised if the districts slide back into chaos.”

“That can’t happen,” said Telemachus instantly.

He sidled over to Telemachus, retaking his seat and rubbing his temple as if it pained him. “I know, Telemachus, and therefore we need The Hunger Games. Do you know why?”

Telemachus said nothing, not wishing to provide an incorrect answer. 

“Don’t fret – politics is complex and layered at the best of times. You see, Telemachus, the Games provide a medium to soothe the public’s outrage, while simultaneously providing minimal bloodshed and a sense of hope.”

“But sir, forgive me, I can vouch for District 2, but the other districts… won’t this anger them further?” 

Thorn shook his head. “I – that is to say, we – don’t think so. To win The Hunger Games allows a prospect of opportunity for upstanding, talented district children such as yourself to prove their worth to the nation.”

Although Telemachus did not consider himself to be a child, he knew his place and did not contradict the president. 

“You cannot imagine the bounties, the recognition. The kind that is now yours, Telemachus. Glories and riches eternal. Food and prosperity to a victor’s district throughout the duration of their reign. It will boost morale, drive work productivity. This is a good thing.” 

Telemachus felt an elation in his chest. Thorn moved in closer. 

“Believe me, Telemachus, when I tell you that we do not want to unleash an endless barrage of hatred and pain upon the districts. I am not a cruel man. As a nation, we can move forward in understanding and forgiveness, enriching the lives of those who once wronged us while remembering a past never to be repeated. The Hunger Games will aid us in achieving that.

We just want to make a better world, Telemachus. A better Panem. Do we have your support in this?” He smiled. “We could do with a victor on our side.” 

Telemachus didn’t hesitate. 

“Of course, sir. Panem can trust in me.”

Thorn placed his hand on Telemachus’ shoulder. “I don’t doubt it, soldier.”

In that moment, Telemachus felt a rush of belonging and, at last, he understood his purpose. He had been born to be the champion to a cause that he knew he would never lose faith in; himself, his country and his people. 

Telemachus had not passed under blood and bullets and fire for nothing. He would raze a district to the ground if it meant protecting his kin, and the more that he thought about it, the fiercer his intent to provide a district to be proud of became.

In his eighteen years, Telemachus had been many things. A son, a brother, a soldier. He had been a defender of District 2. A protector of Panem. 

But now, as President Thorn led him to the window and slid back the velvet red drapes, Telemachus understood with a jolt that he was far more than that. 

As his face came into view, the congregation of thousands of people outside of the President’s Mansion erupted into an outburst of cheering and raucous applause.

“These people are all here for you,” said Thorn.

Telemachus slowly raised his hand in acknowledgement, and the crowd went wild. To them, he realized, he was the personification of an era of Panem that meant peace and resolution. 

It seemed that things had finally changed for good. 

And, deep down, Telemachus understood – he was not a child anymore. In fact, he was more than a man. 

Telemachus was a victor.


	3. Gold

Gold Pembrook was afraid of death.

The biological aspect of it didn’t bother him – he didn’t fear a corpse or wrinkle his nose at the smell of expiration. He wasn’t squeamish or hyper-sensitive. He held his composure at funerals.  
No, the truth was, Gold hated death because of its… finality. Inevitability. The loss of control. The things left undone, the people that it left behind. He was also keenly aware of the fact that nobody had a single clue as to what lay… well, beyond. If there was anything there at all.

For years, Gold had not thought about it anymore than he had to.

Now, as he dug out the brittle roots of his dead roses from the dry earth, he knew it would always be a part of him.

Gold felt a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, lad. We’ll just re-plant them.”'

His grandfather’s words did little to soothe him. Gold sighed and looked out across the plot. “I used to be good at this.”

“You still are,” said Grandfather sharply. “You’re just… out of practice.”

Lately, people had developed a habit of softening hard truths for him. Gold tensed. “I wasn’t gone that long.”

“It felt like you were,” said Grandfather. A pause. “We missed you.”

Gold hesitated. What had he really wanted to say?

“I missed you too,” he lied.

No. It wasn’t a lie. Gold wasn’t being completely dishonest. 

From the moment that the Capitol representative had trilled out his name at the Reaping, the only emotion that Gold could comprehend was fear – pure, unadulterated terror. Constantly.

He hadn’t had the chance to feel anything else. 

Gold removed his cotton gloves and placed them in his trouser pocket.

“Do you think I could help out at the shop today?” he asked hopefully.

Grandfather looked uncertain. 

Gold’s family ran a retail florist on the High Street, as they had for decades. Since the ban on inter-district travel, their options had been, admittedly, more limited. However, if Gold could brag, they were the best of the best. And he was their finest salesman by far. His talent lay in his natural eye for arrangement and his impeccable customer service. Gold understood that making a sale wasn't about the product, it was about the person. 

When the daughter of the mayor announced her engagement; a romantic mass of myrtle, roses and red salvia did the trick. 

A state visit from the Minister of Justice called for a sickly-optimistic spread of daffodils, sunflowers and forget-me-nots.

The Victory Tour. He had solemnly placed wreaths of gladioli and purple hyacinths on the tombstone of his district partner, a bony and hard girl from the lower city. 

His talkative escort commented on the striking colors and refined presentation, but only Gold knew what they stood for. He had laid them on all the tribute graves. As a sign of respect.

Strength of character. Honour and conviction. Regret and sorrow. He had meant all of it. 

The carefree Gold that had existed before the arena, that had splashed about in fountains and skipped down cobbled streets, lay dormant beneath a shell of anxiety and repressed anger. 

In hindsight, his fear of death felt short-sighted, almost comical in its simplicity. 

He had spent those final hours before the guards had led him into the arena as a blubbering, inconsolable mess. 

Gold had sobbed into his tunic for ten long hours, pleading to the gods to let him live.

And they had. 

In comparison to the barbaric victor from the preceding year, who had sliced his competitors open from groin to sternum, Gold had relied on timing and the element of surprise. The only bounty he had grabbed from the pile of supplies had been a round, metal shield. The audience had laughed and jeered as he ran and skirted around the main battle, deflecting his opponents until they moved on to easier, more vulnerable targets. The spectators had grown bored with him, favoring the heated confrontations and the agonized cries of the slowly dying children. 

In the end, he had outlasted them all, dealing an unexpected blow to his final opponent. Gold had knelt over the crushed head of the girl from District 4 with bile in his throat. 

He could not forget the shocked silence, broken only by the sounding of the trumpets. 

“I didn’t want to,” he had cried, as a Capitol official lifted his hand into the air. 

On the train back to District 1, throughout his tour, as he stared at the ceiling from his four-poster bed, he had tried to convince himself that he was not a cold-blooded monster.

When he was by himself, Gold repeated it aloud. 

_I am a good person. I am a good person. I am a good person._

It became a ritual. 

Unlike the first Games, that had selectively chosen the children with connections to rebels, sympathizers and neutralists, the Reaping this year had been random, unbiased, not rigged. It was a clear message from the Capitol – even the most staunch and devoted district loyalists would face the brunt of the rebel’s choice to wage war on their Capitol protectorate. 

Gold and his family had stood by the Capitol, served faithfully and done their duty. It still hadn’t saved him.

“You’re not a killer,” his father had wept during their goodbyes in the Justice Building.

His mother took his face in her hands. “My poor boy.” She was shaking. “I love you.” 

Gold was stunned. They had given him up for dead already. 

Of course, he couldn’t blame them. Gold did not delight in violence – his response to conflict was to retreat to his garden and get his hands dirty in other, more pragmatic ways. He couldn’t help but smile whenever he saw a seed unfurl itself, poke through the flat soil and reach its leaves towards the sun. He had done something special. He had brought it to life. 

So, it would be fair to say that his disposition did not meet the requirements of a victor. 

Still, his parents’ presumption had stung, and Gold couldn’t help but feel demoralized. 

Now he realized, that when the gong had rung out, what had spurred him on through the carnage and noise of the bloodbath was not sentiment. Not love or ambition. He hadn’t thought of his family waiting back home for him, the loud and hormone-ridden boys he called his friends, or the beautiful girl from the Pavilion that he had always had a soft spot for. 

It was the fear that drove him. 

Gold’s body had reacted to the acute stress instantaneously. His pupils had dilated, he had felt his heart hammering against his ribs, and the entire arena turned into a tunnel as he became hyper-aware of his environment. There was no getting out without having to go through. 

His instincts did the rest. 

Gold had escaped death and it cost him his life. 

When he first returned to the district, he ignored the throng of supporters at the train station. He didn’t recognize most of them. By that point, he just wanted his mother’s home-made lavender tea and the comfort of his soft, goose-feather pillows. Not reporters thrusting cameras and microphones in his face, screaming orders at him to pose and smile and flex. He brushed off the sycophantic figureheads talking nonsense and inviting him around for brunch. 

As his parents loomed into view, Gold burst into his first real smile since the reaping. He ran up to them and noticed the visible change in their demeanor. They looked exhausted and much, much older. He didn’t know what he had expected, but this was not it. 

His mother had given him a stiff kiss on the cheek. His father shook his hand. 

Honestly, it had been a struggle to reconnect with his family. It was as if an invisible partition existed between them now. His sister looked at him strangely when she thought he couldn’t see her. His parents spoke to him from across the room, exchanging short conversation and one-word answers to any of his questions. On the good days, if they were able to conjure up a smile or a laugh, it felt measured and forced, as if they were being supervised. For Gold, the constant tension and painful small talk became too much to bear, and when he finally left the house for good, he felt their eyes burning into the back of his head. 

Only his Grandfather had treated him the same. It would be folly for him to pass judgement. 

His and his daughter’s generation had, after all, began the war that led them here. 

Gold brought himself back to the present. He didn’t want to walk on eggshells any longer. 

“They hate me, don’t they?” he asked. 

Grandfather raised his eyebrows. “Could you be more specific?” 

“You know exactly who I mean.” 

Grandfather shook his head. “Your family don’t hate you, Gold. They just… can’t understand you.” 

“What is there to understand?” Gold replied, aghast. “I’m still the same person, aren’t I?” 

There was a long pause before Grandfather said: “No, you’re not.” 

Gold gaped at him. He felt as if he’d been slapped across the face. 

“You think I’m a murderer. You all do.” 

Grandfather hobbled over to a blooming white rosebush and deeply breathed in its scent. 

He turned back to Gold. 

“Listen to me. I want to you to think of who you were before you went into that arena. What you thought you couldn’t – or wouldn’t – do in order to escape. To be free of it.” His stare intensified as his coal black eyes met Gold’s acid green ones. “I want you to think back, to when the gong sounded. In that moment, right before you picked up that shield, did any of it really matter in the end?” 

Gold bit his lip but didn’t answer. He didn’t want to say it out loud. That meant acknowledging it. 

His grandfather sighed. “You want absolution, but I’m telling you, you’ll be waiting a long, long time for it. It might never come.” He said his next words carefully. “You won’t want to hear this, but I think it’s important that you do. You’re a killer, Gold. You’ve taken a life. That doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person. It’s time for you to accept that.” 

Silent tears began to roll down Gold’s face and he wiped them away hastily. 

“I don’t want to be this. I don’t want to be a victor, if that’s what people will think of me.” 

Grandfather handed Gold a silk handkerchief. “For as long as mankind exists, we will always seek to find the faults in ourselves. We are a race that thrives on doing what’s worst for us.” He smiled wryly. “Don’t take it personally, Gold. Try to focus on the good.”

As they talked, the sun had started to settle behind the sweeping, rising hills of District 1, casting its orange-pink hue across the cloudless azure sky. The entire garden looked as if it had been painted in watercolor on a large, life-size canvass. It was indescribably beautiful.

The older man looked at it with a sense of awe. His younger companion remained distracted. 

“I can’t stop thinking about her, Grandfather.” 

“About who?” 

“The girl. District 4. She had a family. People that wanted her to come home. I took that away from her. From them. When I…” 

He trailed off, not wanting to finish. Grandfather decided to fill in the blanks. 

“Yes, she did. All twenty-four of you did. And only one could come back. One. You have a family too, Gold. One worth fighting for, even when things are complicated.” He gave Gold a moment to consider this, and the boy seemed to listen to him. “Tell me, what would you do if you saw a dying flower?” 

Gold eyed the old man warily, unsure of where this was going. He decided to humor him. 

“We repot it,” he told him. “Trim the leaves, so the roots won’t have to work as hard. Move it about, if there’s too much sun that’s drying it out.” He counted each step on his fingers. “Hydration is key, so the right amount of water. Fertilize it appropriately. And rub it down to keep the bugs away.” He finished and cocked his head. “Why do you ask?” 

Grandfather caressed the funnel-shaped leaves of a nearby foxglove. “You see, a relationship is like a flower. When it’s going through a rough patch, you have two options of treatment. You can leave it alone and watch it slowly wither, or nurture it until it starts to grow again.” 

The pair of men looked at one another. Almost sixty years of experience separated them, but in that moment a mutual understanding passed between them. It didn’t need commenting on. 

“Thank you,” Gold said. 

Grandfather checked his brass pocket watch. 

“Now, enough talking. Look at the time! Tea should be almost ready. I’d best be off before your mother sends out a search party,” he said jokingly. 

He began to limp away, gripping tight to his cane. It left imprints in the lush, dewy grass. 

After a few steps, he swiveled around to address Gold once more. 

“You are welcome to join us, you know.” 

Gold ran a hand through his wavy blonde hair. “Yes. I know. I mean, I want to. I just… I think that I’m going to spend a little more time here. If that’s alright.” 

“It’s up to you,” said Grandfather with a shrug. 

Gold watched him make his way across the garden, around the red-brick wall that made up its perimeter, down the pavement and out of sight. It was a short walk to their villa. He would be fine on his own. 

He turned back to the flowerbed, with its torn stems and shredded petals. Dead. 

They were past saving. But not everything was. 

Gold took a deep breath, put his gloves on and got back to work.


	4. Brandon

It was not uncommon for victors to misbehave. Bend the rules. Push the envelope. Over the years, a handful of them refused to submit themselves to their Capitol overlord’s every whim and wish. It always ended in disaster; a list of names was whispered across untraceable phone lines. Families were found dead from gas leaks, home invasions, out-of-control fires. 

The cause was never the same. The message always was. 

Brandon Barlow was the first.

From the moment that he ascended the stage at the Reaping for the Third Annual Hunger Games, he stuck out. His bouncy, auburn locks and crystal-blue eyes glinted with a self-assurance that didn’t match his grumpy, irritable expression. He had freckles splashed across his face, and a crooked, twice-broken nose – a detail that was not left unacknowledged by the Capitol media as they excitedly discussed the crop of recruits for the latest death match. 

He was big, he was handsome, and he was more than a little rough-around-the-edges. 

The district escort clapped her hands together in glee. The designated mentor looked hopeful. 

Brandon simply folded his arms and stared out at the crowd.

The people looked up at the newest sacrifice, as they did every year, with a quiet respect. 

District 9 has always been a reserved, rustic place. Its people are hardy and self-reliant – of course, that is almost a pre-requisite there. Not many are built to survive the exhaustive and demanding harvest season in one of Panem’s largest districts. The men and women of the grain district do not take pride in boastful heroism. To shout one’s exploits and achievements from the rooftops earned you a pair of rolled eyes and a bad reputation. No, their strength came from a healthy dose of hard work and tradition. If you wanted to get by, you kept your head down, didn’t talk back to anyone above your station, and you followed the rules.

Brandon embodied _some_ of these qualities. 

His father, Buckton Barlow, had lost his wife, Emmerly, to a stray landmine at the start of the civil war. His siblings had housed rebels fleeing from other districts and faced the noose for their kindness. Both his parents had died years ago – at no great loss – and it was now his responsibility to raise his boys to be upright, reputable men. And it had been tough. He had to be both father and mother, but he met a block in emulating his wife’s empathetic nature and her way with words. Buck was not a smart man, never had been. Even as a child, he struggled at school. He told his slurring, boozed-up daddy that it wasn’t his fault, that the teacher’s words were topsy-turvy and out of order and he didn’t understand them. It didn’t matter. He still got beat within an inch of his life. The pain always faded. It was the shame that did not.

He had raised his sons in a houseful of men, with the combined testosterone of himself, his children, brother-in-law, and nephews. They were all cooped up in a tiny flat, three-to-a-bed for the little ones and a single bed for his in-law. Buckton slept on the floor. Besides the coarse language and empty threats, arguments were miraculously sparse. If a hand was ever raised to Brandon or any of his three brothers, it was deserved and never done out of anger, hatred, or impatience. Their tendency to conceal their feelings kept affectionate words out of their mouths, but the men cared for one another deeply. It was a fraternity… of sorts.

Brandon was the boldest of them. He liked beer that could knock you out in one punch, pretty girls with ribbons in their hair, and nail-biting dart matches in his local pub. He didn’t like the anger behind fighting but found he enjoyed the thrill and adrenaline that accompanied it. As such, he spent his free time challenging older, burlier men to arm wrestles and boxing matches – partly for kicks, and partly so that he could watch the tavern wenches fawn over his bulging biceps, developed from almost a decade of hoisting ten-kilogram sacks of wheat over his head. Brandon could not help but indulge himself the attention. He was nothing like his old man in this way, and the more he thought about it, the less of a problem it seemed. 

It also happened to suit the narrative that the Capitol had spun up for him. 

The Hunger Games had proved immensely popular as an event, both politically and culturally. The districts had accepted that the Games were not going to go away. However, the more easily offended Capitolites did not feel that they had gotten their money’s worth. A single ticket for a decent seat in the amphitheater cost hundreds of denares, and for what? A twenty-minute showcase of a raving butcher? A piss-poor display of a shivering gardener with a shield lucking his way into the top spot? It was laughable. They wouldn’t support it. 

Something had to be done. The viewing public had grown tired of the classical stadium approach for two years running. The Gamemakers realized that the arena had to be spiced up. They needed to truly test the tributes, ensure that the person that emerged victorious was a competent fighter. Hells, that didn’t even matter once they knew how to put on a damn show. 

The pedestals rose into an arena filled with an array of thick boulders; its ground not sandy but covered in tall, scruffy grass. The audience were intrigued. How would this impact the competition? They were also pleased to see that, for the first time, the tributes weren’t half-dazed, self-pitying children. There were no tears. None of them begged to be let go. A number of them were poised to leap into the fray, their gaze fixed on the plentiful supplies.

The gunshot blasted and the Games began. 

Unbeknownst to the tributes, the Gamemakers had not just altered the landscape that year. The dry, entangling foliage hid a swarm of Capitol-invented mutations that had not found use in the war. A sabre-toothed hare ravaged a little girl that mistook it for a harmless rodent. Carnivorous beetles enveloped and consumed the shrieking boy from the coal district. A pair of wild dogs dragged another howling tribute behind a rock and dug their fangs into his neck. 

Brandon ran for the cornucopia of goods, a juggernaut, too large and clumsy to not trip on unseen roots and mounds of earth. He pulled up short in front of a coiled garter snake. It was instantly recognizable. The reptile was common to District 9. They were more irritating than they were dangerous, snapping at your heels or hiding in bed sheets during the wintertime.

This one was different. 

It uncoiled itself and flicked its forked tongue, watchful. After a moment, the snake drew back its mouth to reveal a pair of razor-sharp fangs. Acidic saliva dripped from its jaws. The snake’s pupils dilated. It let out a high-pitched hiss and leapt up, the force propelling it toward Brandon’s face. It soared through the air as the audience watched with bated breath. 

He caught it mid-air, and with a brutal _crack_ , broke the mutt’s neck.

The crowd went wild. 

Brandon tossed the serpent aside as if it had been a toy and strode up to the ample pile of weapons. He rifled through it, unperturbed, and snatched up a sickle with a cruel curve. The cocky smile that crossed Brandon’s face proved that he had found what he was looking for. 

After an hour, it came down to the most gladiatorial finale that the Capitol had witnessed thus far. Brandon had his sickle and the surly, giant of a boy from District 7 wielded a double-sided ax. Each of them had a close-range weapon, ideal for causing pain and drawing blood, and better yet, they both knew how to use them. The mood within the stadium was electric.

It was a short, gruesome fight. For a few minutes, both appeared to be on the same footing, dealing and dodging death blows in equal measure. Then, the lumberjack upped the ante, moving in, step by step, increasing the pace of his attacks. He forced Brandon backward until he was pressed up against a large, black boulder. The stench of sweat and blood was pungent.

District 7 swung his ax. Brandon ducked. 

The metal lodged itself into the boulder’s rocky surface. He didn’t have time to pull it free, or even panic, before Brandon's sickle slashed his throat open. 

He fell to his knees. 

The trumpets blared, cannons sounded, confetti fell, and a disembodied voice from somewhere in the stands announced him as the victor of The Third Annual Hunger Games.

Before he left the Capitol, Brandon received an invitation for afternoon tea with Tigellinus Thorn.

“I don’t visit District 9 as much as I’d like to, you know,” the president told him earnestly. 

Brandon’s heart was hammering. He didn’t know why. “That’s a shame, sir.” 

“It is. Charming little place, really.” He took a sip of his tea. “Needs more sugar.” He took a spoonful and stirred it in, his expression mild and contented. 

There was a momentary silence. 

“Actually.” Brandon’s throat felt dry. He licked his lips. “I was wondering if I could ask a favour.”

Thorn considered this. “A favour.”

“As a victor,” said Brandon quickly. 

For a second, he thought that the president was going to strike him. Then, before he could register it, the moment had passed, and Thorn resumed his cheerful, schoolboy’s grin.

“Please. Elaborate.” He flounced his hand encouragingly. 

Brandon sat up a bit straighter. “I’d like to request more rations for District 9. We’re getting by, and meet our quotas, but barely. There’s never enough food in the summer. Oil is impossible to come by in the winter. I know my people. They want to work. But they can’t.” 

President Thorn nodded sagely. “That is a problem.” 

“Just… a little extra. It would go a long way.”

Thorn smiled. “I shall look into it for you, Mr. Barlow. I promise.”

The details of Brandon’s meeting with the President are no secret. The common folk always suspected. For years afterward, numerous versions of the story were whispered in the corners of brothels and pubs. The victor that broke the first cardinal rule of his district – don’t challenge someone above your station. He was a fool, some say. Others believe him a hero.

In the districts, they say that no good deed goes unpunished. Brandon felt the excruciating truth of this statement. 

He returned home to find that, for all his good intentions, he had been tricked.

“They announced it right before your train came in,” his Pa said stiffly. 

President Thorn had kept his promise. Formerly private landowners had been evicted, their acres taken from them for the purpose of increased crop growth. Homes had been torn down in order to accommodate the construction that had already begun on brand new processing plants. All of this was done in the name of the newly established tesserae system.

It applied to all the districts. Adults had no access to the life-saving provisions. Only children that met the criteria for reaping eligibility could claim a year’s worth of oil and grain. This, of course, came at a price. The more you took, the more your name was added to the reaping.

“The Capitol and the victors continue to work together in prosperity,” Thorn had told the country, the look in his eyes as malicious and gleeful as anyone could remember seeing it.

In the city, Brandon Barlow’s popularity never waned. His rural colloquialisms and southern district drawl enchanted its cosmopolitan masses. Deep down, he despised every last one of them. He hated their garish fashions, the dysmorphic trends that led to beads and feathers in every orifice. He was repulsed by how easily they could laugh and point as children were hunted and chased and gutted onscreen, their bones picked clean by rats and birds and snakes.

On the other hand, Brandon found an escape in the lights and drugs and sex that the Capitol laid out for him. It meant that he could forget the burning hatred in the eyes of the tesserae farmers as they stumbled back from a fourteen-hour shift. He didn’t have to think about the rail-thin, sunburned girls that had to drag their rations home in rusted, broken wheelbarrows. He could block out the screams of little boys calling for their mama from the reaping stage, all because of an additional slip of paper. A slip of paper that was only there because of him. 

Brandon didn’t marry. He never had kids. He spent his life in the bottle, a high-functioning alcoholic, sobering up just enough to mentor the next pen of sacrificial lambs. Brandon tried his best, he really did. But the sad, hard-hitting fact was, they almost always hid and died. Brandon had to watch them suffer until a mutt or natural disaster or Career put them down. 

Katniss and Peeta made a visit to District 9 for their Victory Tour. It had not been as patriotic as they had hoped. There had been three-fingered salutes, commotion in the crowd, arrests. The harvesters and plant workers pushed and shoved to the front of the stage, hoping to catch a sign – a hint – of rebellion from her. She was the girl with the berries. Their new hope. 

A year later, the district burned. Its people had been crushed under the Capitol’s heel for too long. They no longer took pride in their labour. The many granaries, barns, silos and factories were razed to the ground. The Justice Building officials were smoked out, the entire structure infiltrated and reclaimed by the rebels. Nightlock flags fluttered in the cool evening breeze. 

A mob marched to the Hall of Tesserae, their pitchforks and torches held aloft. They tore it down and set it alight. The timber collapsed in a dazzling shower of sparks. The mob whooped and hollered and stamped their feet as the building was reduced to a charred scrapheap. 

Suddenly, gunfire rang out as the reinforcement Peacekeepers exploded onto the scene. Men, women and children fell in a hail of bullets. But, more kept coming, pushing forward, pressuring the armed forces and not giving them a chance to reload their firearms. By the end, bodies littered the ground, white uniforms and district citizenry both. 

There was a haunting silence, broken only by the sound of crackling cinders and distant mockingjay song. Beneath the ruins of the desecrated building, an old man lay dead on the ground.

He clutched a sickle to his chest, the ghost of his last laugh lingering in the winter air.


	5. River

Lorelei's body was on fire.

She was drenched in sweat. The pain came in tides – in, out, in, out. She could hear the ocean, taste the briny air, feel the sand between her curled toes. It all seemed a world away. She gripped her husband's hand, and he urged her on. Roland tried to be courageous, but his voice held a tremor that betrayed him. He was just a boy. A child.

We both are, she thought.

"It hurts," she said, moaning as another contraction struck her.

They had become more frequent. The dull ache radiated from Lorelei's back to her core. Her swollen belly was rock hard and fit to pop. She gripped it, rubbing it gently, hoping that it would assuage her suffering. It didn't. She cried out as the pebbles beneath her thighs reddened.

It went on for hours. Minutes. Days, possibly. Lorelei couldn't tell. Time didn't exist.

A ripping sensation dragged an agonized scream from her throat.

I've been torn apart.

"The child is docking," the fisher-nurse said.

Her husband pressed his lips to her burning cheek. "It's a gift from the sea, Lori. Remember."

The nurse grimaced. "You have to push, girl."

She did.

**

The salt-monk led the procession.

His hymns were resounded by the chorus of priests and priestesses around him. It was a haunting sound, rising in volume and intensity with each passing moment. It was lyrical, too, shifting in pitch and speed – a foreign tongue, but familiar. It had been the language of their people a long time ago. The intricacies and structure were lost to them, but the songs and litanies remained.

They always would.

River was stripped bare, dressed only in a loincloth to spare him his modesty. He was up to his waist in the ice-cold water. The sharp sea wind cut against his skin, like broken glass, and his teeth chattered helplessly.

Mother and father stood at a distance, sullen and grey-faced, not wishing to interfere. River had pleaded with them, he didn't want to do this, it frightened him, but his begging had been ignored. He needed it, they said. It was tradition. And nothing, nothing, got in the way of tradition.

"We offer this child to the water, where his body shall be washed of cardinal sin, his mind cleansed and purified," droned the monk. "He shall emerge from the depths, restored, and begin a new life, unstained."

River felt a hand on his chest, and another on the back of his head. The monk forced him down, no warning, beneath the freezing pool. It was eerily quiet. He could hear the sound above the surface, dull and distant, as if it were from another room. Another world. He looked down. His skin was ghostly pale. The clergy-song was faster, louder, and River realized that he had run out of breath.

He clawed at the hands holding him, but his childish muscles did not have the strength to lessen their grip. He could feel the water entering his mouth, his lungs. River kicked and struggled and did everything he could, but his vision blurred, his limbs sagged, and he strayed out of thought and time.

River opened his eyes. The light stung. His mouth was dry. Everything hurt.

The salt-monk towered over him. His mother and father knelt by his side, their hands clasped in prayer, zealous pride plastered across their faces. A priest spoke, deep and pious and serious.

"He has persisted. Through the drowning, the boy has been left behind, beneath the waves."

There was a cry of affirmation from the crowd. "The man has risen. Go in peace, to work and serve."

**

River was forced to his knees. There was the click of a gun and he felt the cold muzzle against his neck.

They had been ready for this. It was only a matter of time before the rebels came for them. No loyalist family was safe in the current climate. He had been dragged from his bed, his father and mother beside him, in the middle of the night. Blindfolded and bound, they had been led barefoot for several hours before stopping here.

Their sight was restored to them. They were in a dilapidated warehouse. No, a refinery. Years ago, before the war, it would have been whirring and humming with the sounds of workers and machinery. Now, it was abandoned, covered in filth and rust, a home to rats and cockroaches.

An execution chamber.

There was about a dozen of the rebel soldiers, one to every captive. The rebels were armed to the teeth, their faces hidden behind dog-eared balaclavas. They started to discuss among themselves about setting terms and who would represent them at the bargaining table. The more sensitive of them debated as to whether they would need to kill a loyalist to prove to the Capitol that they were serious. They all snapped and fought, and the conversation seemed to go on and on and on in an endless loop.

River's father spoke quietly and carefully from the corner of his mouth. "I don't want you to look."

"At what?" River breathed back. "Where's mother?"

"Just don't look. Please."

River's next question was on the tip of his tongue when the shot rang out.

Some of the more dissident rebels had gotten frustrated. An argument had broken out. In the heat and confusion, a desperate hostage had made a run for it. He made it halfway to the doors before a bullet struck him behind the knee. He stumbled, stopped, then tried to hobble on.

The next slug blew his head clean open.

It was a frenzy after that. The air was thick with red fog and screams.

"River, I wa –"

His father's words were cut suddenly short. He jolted forward, as if pushed, and collapsed into River's arms. He looked up at his son, blank eyes staring, mouth agape. A trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his mouth. River tried to rouse him. None of it worked. He wasn't breathing. River shook him, desperate, but he was dead.

After a while, everything went quiet.

"We've got a kid," said one of the rebels.

River was hoisted to his feet. His hands were shaking. He was frightened. He was furious.

A handgun was forced against his temple. "Should I kill him?"

"Do it," River said, wanting to sound brave, but desperately hoping they didn't.

An officer shook his head. "No." He spat onto the ground. "He's going to run and tell the Capitol what happened here." He turned to River. "Won't you, lad?"

River agreed, and they let him go. A couple of them shot at his heels as he left. Just for fun.

He ran, faster than he'd ever run in his entire life, until his limbs gave up on him and he couldn't run any further. He collapsed at the feet of the first white uniform he saw, breathless and hysterical.

River returned two days later to collect his father's body. The rebels had already burned it.

**

Remove the scales, cut the belly, pull the innards. River knew how to gut a fish.

It was the first thing he learned how to do on the trawler. Well, that, and not to run his mouth. It was a lesson that cost him a tooth and his fair share of bruises. His insolence was a bad habit from the community home that he still hadn't been able to kick. His mother and father had been strict on manners, decorum and social etiquette. But they were dead and gone, and River's graces died with them.

He was thirteen when The Dark Days ended. He'd spent six months in the orphanage before turning himself out to the streets. It was dreadful in there. Overcrowding, unsanitary lodging, beatings, bullies, stray hands and creeping eyes… no, River couldn't bear it. He escaped that particular level of hell and found a job on the docks.

Post-war, the district needed to return to full operation and meet its former quotas as quickly as possible. The harbor was bloated with desperate captains. River landed a job right away. In return for his labor, he got food, lodging and a pittance of a salary. It wasn't a lot, but it was more than enough to get by. They taught him how to use a pike, tie knots and catch his own dinner, too. He picked up a dozen different skills in no time at all.

One night, the first mate hopped up onto the main deck with a maniacal grin on his face. He had a dusty bottle of rum in his hand. It tumbled out of a loading crate, he said, but nobody cared if it was a lie or not because this was a luxury. Sure, they could lose a hand for possessing it. But once it was gone, and the bottle broken and swept up and tossed away, it was gone for good.

None of them could handle it, so after a glass each, they were tipsy and slurring. River's head was swimming. He couldn't concentrate, giggles bubbled up out of nothing, and he was talking nonsense. They drank late into the night, and one by one, the crew passed out until it was just him and the captain. The pair of them sang old sailing songs that River didn't know the lyrics to, toasted to the wisdom and generosity of the Capitol, and made crooning, silly exclamations of love to the sea.

He didn't notice it at first. The captain's hand on his lap, patting it in a familiar, comforting way, before the movement evolved into a gentle, intimate caress up his thigh.

River stared at him.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

The captain smiled. "Tryna make you feel good. Sit back."

He grabbed at River intimately. The younger man stood up, spluttering objection and shouting profanities, but the rum had made him inarticulate. The captain advanced on him, and River struck out. He punched him, over and over, his righteous rage intensifying with each blow. He had the captain beaten black and blue and purple.

The older man's dizziness caused him to lose his footing. He tripped and fell overboard with a loud, dramatic splash. There was a faint paddling noise as the captain tried to pull himself back aboard. He looked at River, too drunk to help himself.

"Help!" he cried. "Help me!"

River didn't dive in after him. His knuckles were red with blood. He was utterly consumed by panic and, in the comedown from his rage, he just wanted out. He sat down on the deck, curled himself up into a ball, and tried to ignore the sounds of the drowning man.

An hour later, everything went quiet. It was the worst sound that River had ever heard. Worse than the guns or the screams.

He resigned the next day, lying through his teeth and citing discomfort at the captain's sudden disappearance. After that, River slept in abandoned hulls and shipyards for a year. His lack of guilt for what he had done scared him, and he felt his self-imposed isolation served as penance.

The captain washed up a month later. River was never found out.

**

Before the sun even rose, Hodharbor was already abuzz with movement. An accumulation of a port, harbor and marina, it was the largest docking space in the district. The jiggers and liners and dredgers swept across the bay, out to the fishing line's perimeter to bait and catch and haul. The docks were bustling with business, cargo being unloaded, tugboats pulling about larger commercial vessels. It was a stone's throw away from the district's tourism hub, a prime spot for Capitol visitors to sail a yacht or engage in a spot of fishing. They wanted to feel like a hard-working district hero for a day. Experience the district life first-hand, without the setbacks. The war changed all of that.

River had been there since dawn, lugging around a squeaking cart behind him. It was filled to the brim with fresh clams he'd dug up himself. Technically, it was illegal to sell your own district produce, but River didn't plan on getting caught. He belted out his prices, as loud as he could, hoping that perhaps he could strike a deal with a couple of hungry ex-soldiers, or some sailors that might want sustenance for their trip.

He was negotiating a deal with a Peacekeeper when the first bomb hit.

After the Dark Days, the Capitol had been more alert than ever. Their spies in the districts kept them fed with information. There had been fractions of the rebel collective that had evaded detection, conspiring in secret in the orchards and coalmines and train yards of Panem. They needed to be weeded out and uprooted before they caused any further provocation. The Capitol wouldn't take any chances. The rebels were traced to several locations. Some were confirmed. Others weren't.

Hodharbor was one such place.

There was no warning. No evacuation put in place. The wooden ramps exploded in a cloud of splinters and fire. Sea mines detonated in the deeper part of the wharf, capsizing warships and sinking nurse-boats. Limbs and heads and body parts rained down on those unlucky enough to witness it. River dropped his cart with a crash and dove into the marina. The fighter jets soared overhead, dropping bombs and pelting bullets at anything that lay in their path.

It was a massacre. By the end, over two thousand people had died, with hundreds missing.

A rescue team found River eight hours later. He had clung to a piece of wreckage to stay afloat, sustained a head injury, and was half-hidden under the flotsam and jetsam.

Still, he was alive. It was a miracle.

The Hodharbor Disaster was the deadliest isolated attack in District 4 history. It was unsurpassed in its number of casualties until the night of the Mockingjay Uprising seventy-four years later.

**

River wasn't surprised to be going into the Hunger Games.

It's just my luck, he thought, as he traipsed up to the stage, heavy-footed and sulking. This was just the pearl inside of a dung-filled oyster.

He was quite the sight. Covered in tattoos. A shark-tooth necklace. Whale-bone bangles clacking dangerously. The rain plastered his long, black hair to his slender neck.

His district escort, Leonidas, was the most clueless, color-blind moron that River had ever met. He beamed up at River, chattering nonsense. He tried to enthuse him from the moment they left the square. River hardly listened, but he caught a few words, such as 'privilege' and 'honor' and 'opportunity'. It was all a load of chum. If Leonidas found River's snorts of indignation offensive, he didn't say so. He seemed to genuinely think that he was excited about his circumstance.

Their mentor, Doris, was an old woman with milk-white eyes, lost to chemical burns, and a single wooden leg that she dragged along behind her. Amazingly, she was as cheery and spritely as anyone of her age and health status had a right to be.

With all that said, she was also very, very drunk.

"Only time of the year I get the chance," she said with a wink, as she took another swig of wine.

It wasn't the best team, but River thought they might, might make a cursory attempt to help him.

He was wrong.

The cracks began to show almost right away. On his partner's side, at least. The girl, Shell, was fifteen, a canner's daughter, and completely out of her depth. She spent the entire train journey crying her eyes out, asking if she could go back, insisting it was all a mistake. This irked Leonidas, who snapped at her through gritted teeth, his feathered hair comically swaying to and fro.

"Don't be so ungrateful, girl! This is the chance of a lifetime, and you're acting like a brat!"

She dissolved into fresh tears, snot running down her face. River scowled at the older man.

"Just leave her be," he said quietly.

Leonidas was taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"She's upset. Leave her alone."

"Who do you think you are?!"

River almost laughed. Almost. He raised his voice to a shout.

"Storms save me, you really don't get it, do you? Or are you as stupid as you look?"

Leonidas looked aghast.

"I am your escort! You can't speak to me like that."

River stood up and stomped out of the train carriage, slamming the door behind him so hard that the glass pane shattered.

And then the fool of a man was screaming, obscenities and insults flying from his mouth.

Later, he visited River in his room to let him know that his manners were unsatisfactory at best, and if he was lucky enough to make it back, he was going to have somebody to answer to about his behavior.

As River found out, he was right.

**

The tributes, for the first time, were lifted into the battlefield from a chamber beneath the arena.

It made sense for a more dramatic, sensational start to the amphitheater experience – for the crowd, at least. Most of the competitors felt an instant panic or shock as they caught sight of their surroundings. The arena was flooded with crystal-blue water. It lapped around their toes, splashing their feet and heels. Those from the urban districts exchanged nervous looks. And that wasn't the only thing. Following on from the positive response to the previous year's events, the Gamemakers had gone ahead with the continued inclusion of mutts. Sinister shadows moved slowly and ominously beneath the water's surface, loitering around the pedestals on which the tributes stood.

River wasn't paying attention to the others. His eyes were fixed on an outcrop of rocks roughly forty feet away from him. At its peak, there was a glinting cornucopia of deadly weapons. River zoned in on a steel spear, long and sharp, a more refined model of the wooden kind that he used on the trawlers. It was meant for him, he knew it, and he was the only one here that could wield it properly.

The gong rang out and River leapt into the water. It came up to his chest, but he had miscalculated its depth and hurt his foot as it struck the ground. River thanked the gods for the pool. If he had had to limp his way across a dry, open space, he would be dead ten times over already.

He began to wade through the terrain. It was pure dumb luck that he was left largely unmolested by the schools of piranha that tore the flesh from the tribute's bones. River had heard the stories before, back home, of the shipwrecked navy rebels, floating in the sea for days, picked apart by genetically engineered sharks.

It was not the way he was going to die.

River reached the outcrop and climbed its smooth, wet surface, ascending it as swiftly as he could. He had to put his hands and feet in the right place, but with his bad foot, it took a bit longer. He pulled himself over the ledge, his adrenaline racing, and hobbled to his spear. He snatched it up, a smile of relief breaking out across his face.

There was a sound of displaced air behind him.

Without a second thought, River spun into a defensive stance. It was done just in time. The move deflected the downward sword strike with the spear's thick hilt, and the rebound sent his attacker reeling backwards. The male tribute from District 2 was bigger and meaner than he was. He bared his teeth at River.

"You're lucky they made the arena 'special for you, Four."

River leaned on his spear, observing his nails in disinterest. "I didn't know quarry rats could swim."

"Real funny. You know how to use that thing?" he asked.

River took an offensive position. "Only one way to find out, blockhead."

If River had been smarter, or had a more strategic mindset, he'd have told himself to partner up with this boy, not patronize him. Together, they could guard the ridge from any other potential tributes that might have begun to climb it in the hope of nabbing some supplies. However, the concept of alliances had not yet been solidified. The early Games' confrontations were generally between two individual opponents in a confined space. Of course, as the necessity for a more drawn-out, narrative-driven competition became obvious, River's survival methodology and approach to what a tribute should do became more nuanced and thought-out.

In that moment, however, it was just him, his spear and a brutish boy from District 2.

The fight didn't last long. The mason boy's temper and aggression seemed to be a way to overcompensate for his lack of skill with a sword. He swung and parried and deflected, but his technique was messy and clumsy. He went down after five minutes, when he didn't move quick enough to block a lightning-fast blow to his ribs from River's spear. The subsequent kick sent him tumbling downward, to the gnarling, gnashing teeth that waited for him far below.

River didn't have time to stare. The other tributes had reached the Cornucopia.

It was just like gutting a fish.

The trumpets sounded an hour later.

**

River stormed into the hospital room. He hadn't slept in days. Dealing with sponsors and the media and the girl's family had taken its toll. If it weren't for the Capitol stimulants, and the help of victors that no longer had tributes left in the field, he might not have made it through. It had been a tough year.

The girl laid in her bed, her frizzy brown hair and cherub features scrunched up in concentration. She was eating a mixed fruit salad and watching one of those ridiculous, over-the-top Capitol soap operas. They never aired in the districts. The only broadcasts they received in 4 were mandatory viewing about the Games. Or work.

River stood there for a moment, suddenly at a loss for words. She turned to him and smiled devilishly.

"And you said girls don't win the Games."

**

River had been a victor for over twenty years. He had gotten comfortable in its routine; the preparation, training and screening, selection of the volunteer, the sponsor spit, the storyline, choosing alliances. The lot. Lately, though, the routine had been disrupted. There had been rumors. Rumors of planned peaceful protests and demonstrations, plans to have the districts refuse to watch the Games. They had been swilling about since the Tenth, since the incident. River had flatly ignored them.

He still remembered Hodharbor.

"Don't put any wind in the rebel's sails, okay? It just spells trouble for us," is what he told the others.

He did everything he could to deter sedition in District 4. River knew that being the district's first victor afforded him a certain level of respect. If he had that privilege, he would use it. To prove that the victors and the district were on the Capitol's side. He endorsed and turned up to officiate Capitol visitations, and convinced some of the others to do the same. He organized photo-ops and write-ups about exemplary citizens and exceptional fishing teams that surpassed their yearly quotas. He openly applauded Thorn's regime, despite its increasing severity and the president's deteriorating overall state. River didn't care, if it meant that no further penalties would be enforced.

He was at his home in the Victor's Village, reviewing his trainees for the next round of cuts, when the anthem began to blare, and his plasma television screen lit up.

President Thorn was no longer the commanding, strict man that had led the country out of the Dark Days. He addressed the nation with quivering jowls and blood-shot eyes.

Each district must vote on its male and female representative.

A vote. The district had to choose.

There was a high, piercing scream from the house next door, followed by a rapid, furious knocking at River's front patio.

He sighed, got up and went to answer it.

After Snow ascended to power, each of them received a message.

In their own way.

River's was a sardonic, rough-and-tumble fisherman's whelp. He had pleaded for the chance to learn from them. Despite the other victor's reluctance, River understood that some people just needed someone to have faith in them. When he did, he was one of their trainees, and he was good. But he made the crucial mistake of boasting about it. He gave up a lot of information to a reporter writing an article about districts as holiday spots.

The boy wasn't stupid, just mouthy, but it didn't matter either way. The Capitol permitted the Careers to train, as long as they kept their stinking gobs shut about it.

He was found floating downward in a canal not long after.

The boy wasn't reaped. He didn't volunteer. It wasn't... the Games. It was murder.

River supported the Capitol. He always had. But he loved his district, and his boys, far more.

"I'm getting too old to fight," he told Mags. "I just…" He paused. "Let me do what I can."

He had never seen her smile the way she did in that moment.

**

They called his grandson up.

Snow knows, River thought. He knows what we did.

It was another warning. Another one.

River was not what he used to be. So many of them weren't. His lean, sea-hardened body had become fleshy and wrinkled, his jet-black mane fallen out from the Capitol's miraculous but rigorous cancer treatment. He could only get around on a cane these days – despite his protestations, the spirited, athletic, beautiful victors didn't want him overexerted. River honestly didn't see the fuss.

As if on cue, Noden put a hand on his shoulder. They both knew. He couldn't do anything to help.

The thing is, his grandson would never be Games material. Even if he were older – storms, he's only twelve – he wouldn't have a chance. He put on a brave face on his way to the stage, at least. When Ambrosia Crinkle asked for them, there was a flurry of volunteers that ran to replace him.

As was custom, the first one to reach the platform was chosen. River didn't recognize him. He must have been one of Mags' trainees.

Ambrosia shoved the microphone in his face. "And what's your name, handsome?"

The boy looked out to the audience with sea-green eyes, his bronze hair rustling in the breeze.

"Finnick," he said. "Finnick Odair."

**

River's funeral was a modest affair. The victory of the sweet - but slightly mad - girl had meant that the burial of an old, irrelevant victor was permitted to be a quiet and private event. District 4 had been at the forefront of the news for the last few months. The Capitol didn't need to spend any more money on them.

It had been a natural death, an incredible feat for a victor of his standing. Mags led the congregation. She wasn't religious, never had been, but it had been an important aspect of River's life and she didn't want to ignore that. Sure, he hadn't practised the old way of things for some time, but he still held faith in it. And Mags didn't make fun of someone for having faith. It was the only thing some people had. The only thing that stood between giving up and carrying on. Between life and death.

A circle of District 4 victors stood around River's body, heads bowed in respect at the first of their kind. His daughter and grandsons were present too, crying silently.

The ceremony had to be discreet and covert. Snow's Law had impacted district religion harshly. Mags took a deep breath and pressed her hands together in prayer.

"We commit this man, River Cruickshank, to the sea, where he shall undertake his final voyage, from this life to another. May your journey be safe."

"May your journey be safe," the others resounded.

The two men rolled the body into the sea and River hit the water. His grandchild, the one who had been reaped, held back his tears as he tossed in a wreath of water lilies after him. Both man and flowers descended peacefully together to the quiet, sandy floor of the seabed, free at last from the fears and expectations of the world above.


	6. Kine

Divide et impera. Divide and rule. The Capitol fought a war – and rebuilt a nation – on these words.

Its significance in the defeat of the districts was so prominent that it had almost, almost been adopted as the state motto of Panem. The rage of the loyalist leaders and patriots, or Thorn's Men, certainly warranted it. A roomful of lieutenants and commanders and politicians debated it unto the early hours of the morning, until a clear, cool-as-ice voice cut the chaos short. It was far too provocative a phrase in the current climate, they said. A cleaner, stately, more patriotic slogan was chosen in the end. It was a bit on the nose, but it felt appropriate.

Of course, their emboldened use of the technique didn't stop there. It had been at the heart of the Hunger Games since their inception. The Capitol needed to instil mistrust and doubt, deter solidarity and empathy. They wanted the districts to blame the children on the screens, not the scheming adults behind the camera lens; it was of paramount importance to draw the focus away from the real problem and sew discord among the rabble.

They targeted each district uniquely. It wasn't difficult for them to worm their way into a community, identify a flaw, exacerbate it and then use it to their advantage.

In District 3, the scientists and engineers and geneticists had their progress and genius lauded and rewarded, as the unskilled labourers slumped back to their filthy quarters, feeling overworked, unacknowledged and, more than anything, stupid. The constant reminder of their low status and lack of intellectualism and innovation made them resentful, a feeling that only festered over time.

The separation in District 7 was done on religious grounds – half of the populous held an unshakeable, rigorous belief in their monotheistic worship of an ancient earth-goddess. The remaining citizens worshipped the numerous traditional gods that most of the other districts did. The two faiths were oft at one another's throats, burning down temples and engaging in bouts of tit-for-tat sectarian violence. The Peacekeepers held it at bay – when they weren't told to encourage it.

District 12 had faced an influx of exiled families from wealthier districts, by the Capitol's forced hand. In fact, so grave was the prospect, that the ultimatum resulted in a popular saying: "To hells or to Twelve." A disproportionate number of those that relocated came from District 1, and their angelic, light features clashed with the olive skin and dark complexion of the rest of the district. The newcomers had once been cobblers and herbalists, confectioners and dressmakers, bakers and brewers; their ancestral labor became the source of their income in their new home, and those descendants set up what became the merchant class in the coal mining district. They distinguished themselves from the malnourished, poverty-stricken Seam folk and the two classes kept their distance, rarely mixing or socializing in any context.

And then there was District 10.

In District 10, the Capitol didn't have to interfere.

The animosity had been present for generations across the dry, dusty landscape of the livestock district. It was more than memory; it was an old hatred, ingrained in the people's flesh, blood and souls. Their bitterness and indignation had not ended with the Dark Days, or the introduction of the Games. The explosive events of the past twelve years had not subdued the pain that existed among the three main communities. Their history was complicated.

Nobody can trace the conflict back to a single, isolated event. The only recorded information on the subject was cataloged in the Great Library of Panem, a once-celebrated institution of historical preservation, that deteriorated into a cesspit of censorship and propaganda under the supervision of Coriolanus Snow. A handful of mindless Mockingjay rebels later torched it, much to the president's chagrin. As he repeatedly said, he was many things, but he was not wasteful. A millennium of scripture, texts and records had been lost forever. There was something about it that wasn't right.

And yet, somehow, through the shared oral and aural accounts, the story survived. Of course, each rendition was shaped and embroidered with bias and hyperbole, depending on who you asked. It took a multitude of transcripts from several interviews commissioned by President Paylor to present a clear, researched and somewhat accurate timeline of where it all began.

Before the end of the Dark Days, the district had been colonised by three main groups.

The Karankawa had founded District 10, seeding its enormous and expansive pastures for years beyond count. They bred the first of the lowing cattle, snorting swine, flapping poultry and wide range of livestock that would go on to feed, clothe and nourish the nation with their skins, meat and milk. Descended from the nomadic tribes that had made their way from the other side of the world prior to the Catastrophes, they had retained many of their hunter-gatherer instincts. Their faith was animistic, and they maintained a deep respect and reverence for all living things, shunning superficiality and material goods. While some opted for more permanent settlements – fixed pueblos made of stone and adobe – others moved from place to place, fashioning hogans from natural resources such as mud and bark, logs and earth, and drawing strength from the soil. They remained unperturbed for a long, long time.

Then, there came the Mejoravida, commonly referred to as the Mejo, who arrived in District 10 as wayfaring laborers, searching for refuge or work that had been denied them in their home districts. They lived in dingy encampments, aiding the Karankawa as grooms and shepherds and stable hands in exchange for lessons on survival and self-sustenance. At first, they worked in harmony and open collaboration with the native people, who – despite the language barrier – taught them how to sew the fertile land, find water in a dry-spell and grow a range of crops in the district's unforgivably hot climate. Before long, children of mixed descent were born, bringing the two communities together and creating a new bloodline.

Then, the Shawnee arrived.

Nobody knows where they originated from. Some believed they had come from the elite and high-profile inner district socialites, judging by their pale skin and light eyes. Others claimed they were from the Capitol, due to their airy, whimsical accents. Perhaps it was a mixture of both. Either way, when they came, they brought machines and control and fear with them. They took the land that the Karankawa had lived on for years and displaced them from it. The natives were a non-violent, pacifistic people, and did not have the weaponry or warring attitude to resist their expulsion, much less fight back against them. Some were slaughtered.

What the Karankawa lacked in manpower, the Mejo more than made up for. They fought with fists, clubs and words, they spat curses and oaths and damnation to the Shawnee and their ancestors and their children. It did no good. Words and crooks and slingshots are of no use against a small army equipped with rubber bullets and tear gas and electric fences.

The Shawnee took the land and built plantations and ranches and corrals upon it, hiring servants from the throngs of now incapacitated and homeless Karankawa and Mejo. They reinvented and redistributed the district, assigning a pitiful amount of land to each of the groups. The borders of their newly assigned territories remained unclear, and from their skirmishes and squabbles arose an ongoing turf war. Midnight ambushes and forcible removal became commonplace. The Karankawa shrunk back from the crude tomahawks of the strangers that had once been their friends. The Mejo awoke to the settlement of tribes-people that had come to reclaim what had been theirs not weeks before.

Meanwhile, the Shawnee that owned the grazing grounds and slaughterhouses and animal laboratories erected a towering, red-brick wall sixty-feet high around their largest settlement. The gated community, known as the Pale, held its occupants in wooden carriage houses, designed to keep out the heat and the brutal savagery of the supplanted natives. The Shawnee watched on, unfeeling, as the district began its descent into self-destruction. They didn't care if the sparring peoples obliterated one another, once they got what was left over.

Inevitably, outgoing productivity suffered, and the Capitol had to step in.

The entire north-east of the district was split cleanly in two; the Karankawa were lumped into one half, the Mejo in the other. The active hostilities and attacks ceased, but a deep loathing lingered, and their former alliance was largely forgotten. The karanmejo children denied their lineage, for fear of rejection. The only thing that either side of their families had in common was their abhorrence of the Shawnee, who they vehemently despised in no uncertain terms.

During the Dark Days, the district had a storm of fury to unleash upon the loyalist forces (led by prominent members of the Pale and Shawnee landholders), but their inability to convene and assemble together as a single, united force made the revolution in District 10 nigh impossible; the Mejo put up a good fight, but their brittle defenses, combined with the leaking of information by members of their own militia, put down their rebellion swiftly and decisively. A more solitary campaign in the Second Rebellion, with the implementation of a non-violent but a well thought-out Karankawa strategy proved to be extremely successful.

The traitors that had given up their brethren in exchange for post-war immunity and acres of countryside were disowned and cast out from their encampments, into a part of the district that became the Porla Riqueza, so named by the Mejo, to signify the fiscal ambitions and self-preserving, self-serving disposition of the turncoats and sell-outs that called it home.

It is no surprise, then, that the district's reaction to Kine Villanueva was less than favorable.

He was everything that the district hated. His tough, intuitive father had escaped from District 11, taken up work as a swine herder, and met his mother – the fearless, fiery daughter of a Karankawa chieftain. By the time of Kine's birth, the Shawnee had claimed the district for their own, and his parents' relationship had been deemed taboo and immoral. After the Dark Days, the Villanuevas were outed as a part of the Riqueza double-crossers, chased out of their former homes and forced into the factories that sorted good oats from bad for cattle.

At the reaping ceremony for the Fifth Annual Hunger Games, the Shawnee children pointed and laughed behind their hands at the turquoise string and tinkling bells braided into Kine's hair. The Karankawa glared at the deerskin and moccasin boots, their traditional cloth, that adorned his light brown skin. A few of the older, angrier Mejo stared into his dark, round eyes and spat on the ground in disdain. Slurs and insults began to ripple throughout the crowd.

"El mulo," the Mejo whispered.

Mule. Half-breed. Bastard. The words, and the meaning behind them, did not upset Kine.

They were, after all, just words. He had dealt with them for years. It began with the swarm of fair, freckled children that pinned him down, pushing their button-noses against his bulbous one and braying as loudly as they could. Kine had cried about it then, for the first and last time. His mother wiped away his tears with an oak leaf and set up a dreamcatcher by his bed, promising him that a day would come that he would realize the power in his individuality.

"People may hate you for being different, little one. They wish they had the same courage."

This helped Kine to handle playground jibes and uninformed comments. He could put up with a schoolyard ambush or a petty scrap. The years didn't make life easier, but they made it bearable, although the more he pushed the anger down, the greater the pressure became. He felt it bubbling just beneath the surface, but he wanted to be good, and so he never acted on it.

As Kine entered adolescence, his gained muscle and growth spurt made him a less desirable target. Just in case, he wanted to be handy with a knife, and arranged a weekend with an old Shawnee farmer that needed a hand in slaughtering his hogs. It was just for a few extra denares. His mother hated the idea and found it sacrilegious ('blood money' was the exact term that she not-so-lovingly and quite ironically used), but his father quietly encouraged him.

Unfortunately, when the time came. Kine failed his task miserably. The high-pitched squeals of the encased pig made his hands shake. Its eyes widened in terror, and it bucked and reared as Kine tried to hold it down. He held the rusty blade to its neck for what felt like hours, until the farmer gave an impatient grunt, snatched the knife back and slit the hog's throat himself.

"How did it go, mijo?" his father asked him upon his return.

"It was fine," Kine lied. "A lotta blood."

"You'll get used to that," he said with a laugh.

It was strange, being their only son. Kine always felt as if his parents had split him at birth and taken a piece each. To his padre, he was the salt-of-the-earth, only as good as the fruits of his honest day's work. And for his kaninma, his mother, he was a sensitive soul, as gentle and harmless as a breath of summer wind. He always felt that he had to be one or the other.

The more Kine thought about it, the more it weighed on him. He tried to forget about it.

Unfortunately, the rest of the district had not.

For a time, Kine swallowed their beneath-the-breath insults and hard, presumptuous stares. He ignored the dubious, unconvinced expression of the man behind the counter at the Tesserae Hall when he stated his Mejo surname. It all began to meld into a dreary palette of expectations and stereotypes, and their ignorance washed over him as a brook does pebbles.

That was before the escort announced his name.

They called the girl up beside him, a heavy-browed and full-lipped meja that could barely look at him. She limply shook his hand, then wiped it on her long, agave skirt, as if he were a wild dog that had rolled about in its own filth. Kine didn't understand her reproach. He hadn't asked for this, any of this, no more than she had. It wasn't his fault he was what he was.

Kine looked out at the assembly in the square, a sea of unwelcoming, vengeful faces. In that moment, his impending doom provided a bout of clarity, and he understood that they would never claim him as one of their own. His sorrow quickly burned into a fierce determination.

As he boarded the tribute train, the jeers and slander dissipated rang in Kine's ears. They didn't want him to come back. A karamejo victor lording about the Village? No way. Despite this, Kine had other plans. He was coming back. And when he did, they would cheer for him – whether they wanted to or not.

Kine did not know what to expect from the Capitol. He had heard tell of its soaring skyscrapers and lush parks, the explicit nature of the clubs inside its buzzing under city. People walked about in outlandish wigs and impractical, garish day wear, resembling colourful, chirping parakeets. He didn't belong on the same planet as them. He imagined that, to them, he was an insect. A dangerous insect, one that must be squashed quickly.

So, when the Capitol put them up in a fancy hotel for training, Kine was taken aback.

In District 10, the people knew that if an animal was in a state of severe distress before its slaughter, the fear permeated the meat. There were several influential variables – rough handling, adverse conditions, fighting, botched stunning – that broke down glycogen and made the meat pale, acidic and crumbly. It was as unappetising as it sounded. The meat became inedible and non-marketable. The Capitol lost an enormous amount of profit.

A new level of opulence in the pens required a higher budget went for pre-slaughter treatment. And while the Capitol made it back in what they sold, every penny counted, and they refused to make a loss on workers. The minimum wage in the district was reduced to accommodate this. The change was a good one and denares began to flow.

Inspired by the success in the livestock district, the Gamemakers decided to incorporate this approach into the Games. After a day and a half of being confined to a squat, filthy jail cell and abused by guards and spectators, most of the tributes' motivation fizzled out halfway through the match. When you combined that with their lack of knowledge with and inability to utilise the provided weapons – particularly those from the urban districts – then you didn't have much of a show.

The muttations and a more conceptual arena helped to ease this, but the issue remained. How best could they prepare the tributes, while staying true to the spirit and politics of the Games?

It was a young, ambitious Gamemaker by the name of Vespasian Lilt that suggested training.

The reaction at the round table was one of shock. "Arm them? Outside the arena?"

Lilt nodded. "Under strict surveillance and with security, of course. Half of the districts use potential weapons on a regular basis. Why don't they attack with them? Peacekeepers. We get a few men in white in there, there'll be no problems. Use your heads."

His closest rival folded her arms. "And who is going to teach them?"

"Specialists. Veterans. Experts. We'll pay them handsomely. It'll level out the playing field. For industry tributes, the ones that fish and cut wood and grain, they've already got an advantage. Show a Twelvie how to knife-fight, now, that would be a twist. Think about it."

The room sprung to life with murmurs of renewed interest. They were cut suddenly short.

"No way. The DERCs would go crazy. There'd be riots in the streets," someone said.

Lilt considered this. The District Exclusionary Radical Capitolists (or DERCs, as they were known) had been a serious pain in the neck for the Gamemakers from the beginning.

In the eyes of the DERC, the Hunger Games had been a soft option and rewarded, not reprimanded, the districts for their treason and infinite war crimes. In turn, they boycotted and protested the Games from the moment of their creation. The organization comprised of adults from varying ages and Capitol classes whose families had suffered extreme casualties during the Dark Days. They were under-educated and unemployed, with little to no understanding of the intricate political and sociological meaning behind the Games – at least, not in the way the government did. Their actions were driven by impulse, and a vengeance that had resulted in bouts of petty violence. Several had been arrested throughout the years.

"I see your point," said Lilt. "But is that really our problem? I trust the competence of our trained and noble police force far more than the hollow threats of a small minority. Don't you?" He allowed this to sink in for a moment. Nobody wanted to criticize the law enforcement. "The DERC have, what, eighty members? A hundred, max? Hardly an army."

There were still other concerns, besides the reaction of the Capitol public. Would the tributes attack the trainers? What if they panicked and tried to do a runner before the Games?

Every aspect of the training programme concept was debated hotly and extensively. In the end, Head Gamemaker Tarquinius Bottleby had to make a last-minute executive decision.

"We go ahead with Lilt's proposal," he said. "Don't look so excited, Vespasian. It's a trial run. And if it fails, you'll be on arena clean-up from then until eternity. Do you understand?"

The young man nodded, his cheeks burning as he tried to ignore the loud titters of his peers.

Lilt was put in charge of everything. It was no laughing matter – his job and reputation were on the line. He increased the security budget, built an extension to the tribute's accommodation, and hired Capitol and district experts in combat, weaponry and gymnastics. A mixture of citizenry would humanize the tributes to them, Lilt correctly predicted.

On the first day of training, Kine and the twenty-three other tributes looked around the gymnasium. It was filled to the brim with an ample amount of equipment – long-swords, rapiers, javelins, maces, daggers, throwing knives – and the teachers who would provide the tools to wield them. There were shooting ranges of varying lengths and real-size mannequins, perfect for target exercise. A designated area had been set up just for hand-to-hand combat. It was basic and stripped back, compared to the later training centers, but it was a good start.

As Lilt watched nervously, he kept an eye on the burlier, more capable tributes that he suspected had the upper hand. They stuck to what they knew; the Sevens picked up the axes and tossed them about menacingly, beheading and cutting into the practice dummies as the horrified children watched. The Nines soon joined in, and it became something of a performance as the two pairs tried to outdo one another in front of their competition. The Fours kept to themselves, lingering around their spears and looking entirely unapproachable. Many of the others just hung about, sniffling and making a half-hearted attempt with a bow.

Out of the lot of them, Kine – the strange, obtrusive boy from District 10 – turned out to be the biggest surprise. He floated from station to station, chatting good-naturedly and laughing heartily with the teachers. In the end, he built up a good rapport with the martial-combat and knife instructors, who he developed a routine with over the course of the training days. In the Capitol, he was not a mulo, or a riqueza – he was just a tribute, just Kine. He didn't find an issue in fighting with people, he told them. In the Games, he could justify it. It didn't count as murder to kill a person if they wanted you dead. It was nothing like trying to hurt an animal.

Lilt wrote the boy's name in his notebook. He and the gargantuan young man from 11 had been the only tributes worth paying attention to. The others were, unfortunately, predictable, or predictably pathetic. He didn't have to ask for special treatment. The trainers provided that free of charge, for those that tried. Lilt smiled to himself. It was shaping up to be his year.

By the night of the Games, Kine was no warrior, but he was ready as he was ever going to be.

Or so he thought.

When the gong sounded, Kine sprung from his plate and bolted for the first dagger he saw. No sooner had he wrapped his hand around it, than a giant, dark blur crashed into him. Kine went flying and crashed into the dirt. His blade lay several feet away. He went to grab it, but a foot came down and shattered his wrist. Kine cried out in pain, and the shadow of the boy from District 11 looked down at him. He picked up the dropped knife and held it to Kine's throat. It bit into his neck, then stopped. A hesitation.

The combat instructor's voice resonated in Kine's mind.

If they got you pinned, just keep them talking.

"Go ahead," Kine said. "District wants me dead, anyhow. You'll be doing them a favor."

Eleven looked uncomfortable.

"Why they want you dead?" he asked.

"My father is from your district… mother's not… makes me a mutt to them."

Eleven's mouth tightened. "You're part Eleven?"

Kine nodded, struggling to breathe. "Dad… worked the persimmon crops… in Zone B."

The larger boy frowned. Kine had told him the truth. How else would he know the zones?

In the agriculture district, they held their blood ties in high regard. Kine's padre had told him; district honor, an unspoken law, did more harm than good, but it was the default there.

Suddenly, Eleven's expression softened, and he relaxed the pressure of his knife.

For years, Kine's heritage, his skin, the choices his family had made before him, had caused him a lifetime of pain. Now, it had spared him his life.

Unfortunately, it didn't save the boy from District 11 when Kine clawed out his eyes. The larger boy swore, clutching at his mangled eye socket.

He writhed in pain as Kine bore down on him and plunged the knife into his throat.

Suddenly, there was a shrill screech. The meja from his district launched herself at him. She was wild and feral, but Kine was able to intercept her and knock her flat on her back. Adrenaline had given her a terrific strength and she fought against him with every fibre of her being, hissing and scratching and growling. It was a horrible sight.

"Let go of me!" she screamed.

"I don't want to hurt you!" Kine told her.

"Liar! Traitor!"

"Please, just stop!"

"Curse you, you mulo!"

Kine saw red.

His knife came down. Behind every thrust was an insult, or a slur. The pent up rage that came from repressing eighteen years worth of hatred and segregation.

The trumpets rang and Kine couldn't hear them. They had to pull him off of her. It wasn't easy. He was trying to find the apology in her eyes.

Somehow, everything seemed to go upward from there.

His designated luncheon with Thorn went swimmingly. He got to see the best of the city before his trip home. He tasted fruity wines and rich, sourdough bread. He got to meet raving fans that demanded his autograph, and they practically salivated in hysterical excitement as he scribbled down a short, sharp signature. They were boys, girls, men, women, the elderly, toddlers in their prams. For the first time, he was in a place where nobody cared that he was a karamejo mule. People liked him, admired him, wanted to be him. They would pay to look like him, go out of their way to seduce and sleep with him. Nobody had done that before.

Kine was the first tribute and victor to kill his district partner. The Capitol had praised him for it. He did not expect District 10 to do the same.

The thing was, Kine had thought that winning the Games might give him something he needed. Self-confidence. Peace of mind. A validity, or respect, to his existence.

He should have known better. Kine never got the acceptance he so desperately craved.

At his homecoming, he expected a plethora of vitriol. The sound of gunshots. Riots, protests, the lot. The DERC had made threats on his life. Wouldn't the district?

But the people in District 10 didn't bay for his blood. There was no booing. No spitting at his feet. You see, Kine could've handled that. He was used to it, prepared for it.

His words rang out across the square, uninterrupted, as he thanked the people for their staunch support. It was part of the suitably clean script he had been given.

Kine thanked the Capitol for their eternal generosity. He honoured the fallen meja, her dark eyes narrowed in anger on the large screen behind him. He celebrated her courageous sacrifice as her family glowered up at him, their faces contorted with inexplicable grief. He found his own parents in the crowd. They couldn't look at him.

When the escort tried to lead them in applause, they did as Kine promised himself they would. They applauded.

It was not a happy sound. It was cold, short, and as biting as any silence could be.

Kine's speech was brief. He hardly touched the extravagant banquet laid out for his entourage and family. Those assembled tried their best to make idle chit-chat over the sound of the whippings and arrests that took place outside. He excused himself early, citing exhaustion, and requested to be escorted to the Victor's Village. He couldn't bare to be here, in this place, any longer.

As he was given a tour of his new home, Kine met the array of house staff that would wait on him day and night. Capitol-selected, well-mannered and obedient. Some of them were Karankawa, others Mejo. There was a Shawnee girl that even gave a half-hearted curtsy. He made to shake their hands, hesitated, and then decided not to.

He caught the relief on their faces before any of them could hide it.

The problems persisted, the people resented, and District 10, already heavily divided by years of oppression and segregation, had turned further against itself.

As he got into bed that night, Kine realised that nothing had changed.

It wouldn't change for a long, long time.


	7. Shale

After the uprising, the town of Sunfair had fallen into disarray, its once bustling square and winding cobblestones a graveyard of abandoned hovels and crass graffiti. Many of its former citizens had abandoned it. They had fled to Tyne, with its fertile earth and muddy banks by the Longriver, or migrated to Stoneslate, accessible to the plentiful work opportunities and the centralization of Panem's military.

It was a ghost town now, its shops sacked and looted, the coopers and butchers and brewers hollowed out and hastily converted into brothels, black markets and derelict militia outposts. Beneath the village lay a warren of unused and narrow tunnels that zigged and zagged for miles and miles, their many pathways long forgotten.

In the absence of her first families, employment and housing in Sunfair had deteriorated. The criminals that had outlasted the uprising – battle-ravaged militia members, middlemen for the drug cartels in District 6, semi-retired hit men – found themselves drawn there. They gathered together in the rotting belly of the countryside hamlet and added a new trick to their grotesque repertoire – slavery and human trafficking.

It would, in hindsight, be remembered as a dark point in the district's history. The purchases began as covert and underground deals, battered briefcases of denares exchanged in alleyways, behind taverns, in disused quarries and construction sites. Word spread quickly across certain, malevolent channels, and the scheme evolved drastically. It was always the most vulnerable of the community – war orphans, children that had aged out of their foster homes, young people separated from their loved ones by the total shutdown of inter-district travel – that became ensnared in its inhumane coils, tempted by sweet, empty words.

In the winter that ended the first year of peacetime, an auction took place.

Knowledge of the event had circulated within specific social groups; avox recruiters, local politicians, the wealthiest and oldest of the Capitol ruling class whose generous donations had assisted the war effort during the Dark Days.

In the two nights that preceded the sales, the options had to be brought in from around the district. The well-off pinched their noses and set themselves up in dingy inns and mayor's guest rooms. They weren't far from the site. A canyon, perfect to conceal their illicit activities, was carved into the district landscape roughly three miles outside Sunfair. As they waited, the buyers stared out their windows at the shattered towns and shook their heads at what a country could do to itself.

Eventually, the day of the auction came. The slave owners had not discriminated in their selections of youth; children of rebels and loyalists alike had been chained inside a large, makeshift shed and brought to and from the main display block. The spectators eyed them, examined with less consideration than a broodmare.

Most of the children had been lured in by promises of a new home, gainful employment. A hot dinner or a clean bath. Some were of reaping age, but almost half of them could barely remember a time before the Dark Days, so young they were. The salesman considered this an enticing quality to the buyers. Start them young, they would say. Just give them time to adapt to being in your service.

Those present looked down at the scores of slave children and demanded they be transparent about their background, abilities and the politics of their descendants. It was a grueling, cruel process. The luckiest of them would go to work in a manse as servants, the less fortunate prepped and trained to be concubines and avoxes.

At the bottom of the Canyon, a small valley was enclosed by the rising sandstone walls around it. A mass of hand-bound and barefoot slaves descended its slope and into the auctioneer's blockade, and they brought the stench of neglect with them. Beneath the floral and sage perfumes of the chattering socialites and the odor of whiskey, it was there.

A large canvas tent had been set up to facilitate the bidding, a wooden crate serving as a podium. The children were led to it, their number, and details (age, weight, height, recommended service – pleasure, labor, hospitality) announced aloud to those assembled. A small girl was led away, her dirtied face streaked with tears. She was replaced by a little boy, who tried to keep his eyes hard while his lower lip trembled. It went on like this for some time. It was an endless parade of terrified, penned lambs being sold to ravenous wolves.

One of them was not like the others.

At least, not openly so; Shale had classic masonic features: sallow skin, dark hair, an aquiline nose, and a large, bushy brow. His eyes, however, were a deep blue, uncommon to the district and indicative of an ancient ancestor that hailed from the luxury or energy districts. Now, they surveyed the room, an icy fire of rage and frustration, but beneath all of that… a panic, almost animalistic in nature. He actively searched for an escape route, a target to lash out at.

"Auction sixty-four!" a gruff voice shouted, shoving the young man beneath a dim lamp suspended above the crate. It cast a dark shadow across his face. "Male, twelve years old, four-ten, eighty pounds. In good condition and ideal for both business and pleasure!"

The bids began. Shale was underweight, but strong for his age, and more importantly he was handsome. He proved to be immensely popular among the haughty old women that dripped in furs and pearls. He was eyed up by the paunchy middle-aged men that had more chins than fingers. The young, toned upstarts raised their eyebrows in curiosity. All demographics seemed to have an interest.

They hoisted their paddles aloft and belted out their interest, voices overlapping in their increasing bids of incomprehensibly enormous amounts of denares. The excitement in the room reached a roaring climax, as Shale prayed for sweet release with the only orison that he knew off by heart.

Gem of Panem, mighty city, through the ages you shine anew…

A settlement had been reached. His new master ruffled through documentation, signing in looped, cursive handwriting. They didn't seem to be pleased about the extensive paper trail. Evidently, capitalizing on slavery required a hefty amount of legal protection. He considered making a run for it, but his eyes fell on the edgy men by the door, their firearms a thinly veiled threat; if you step out of line, we will fill you with bullets, and it will hurt.

We humbly kneel, to your ideal, and pledge our love to you…

The anthem had been played three times a day in their small hut near the mountain path. Once at dawn, again at noon, and dusk. His elder sister had an old, battered fiddle that had been passed down to her in a dead uncle's will. She scrunched up her face in concentration and played the proud, straight, warbling tune. The entire family sang along, and it was so beautiful it made his eyes well up with tears. When the war broke out, Shale couldn't understand why the rebels and dissidents wanted to take that away from him.

Gem of Panem, marble justice, wisdom crowns your marble brow.

He wasn't just a number. He would not be a slab of meat for the brothels, a mute to wait on lesser men. Shale was a patriot, a descendant of the men of the mountains, a fractured and dying breed before the Capitol had helped them. The men and women descended from the city in the sky and, in their infinite generosity and goodness, bestowed land and resources upon their district brethren. In turn, the clansmen had offered them their undisputed loyalty.

You give us light, you reunite, to you we make our vow.

Shale had been separated from his family in the Sunfair evacuation. It was a treacherous and winding journey to scale the mountain pass by foot, but the Capitol had promised protection and haven on the other side. It was a safer option than staying put. In the end, it hadn't mattered. The rebels had tried to contain the outpouring of refugees through tear gas and rubber bullets, and in the chaos, Shale had been torn from his family permanently.

Gem of Panem, seat of power, strength in peacetime, shield in strife.

The deal was made. Shale was forcibly removed from the podium, grabbed by the scruff of the neck, and dragged towards the 'sold' pen. He dug his bare feet into the dirt, twisted and thrashed as best he could, but to no avail. His new master grinned and made a snide comment about getting him broken in, but Shale didn't listen.

Instead, he quietly pleaded for intervention.

Protect our land, with armored hand, our Capitol, our life.

And, against all odds, it came.

The first tremor was short and violent, its sudden intensity thrusting spectators from their chairs and sprawling onto the earthy floor. At first, there was silence.

It was followed by a wave of laughter that arose to break the tension. Several people scrambled to their feet, grumbling and red-faced. They wiped the detritus from their satin blouses and silk shirts and made to retake their seats quickly.

The second tremor struck. This time, it was accompanied by the sound of a cracked whip that tore through the air like lightning, and a chorus of screams leapt up.

The metal rods that held the tent up splintered and split apart as the roof collapsed in on itself. The gathered audience fled. They trampled and shoved and stepped upon one another in their haste to escape. The earth gave another tremendous shudder and a series of chasms opened in the dry soil, sending the confused swarm reeling backward and tumbling into the crevasses. It was madness. Pandemonium.

The roof swamped Shale's slight form, and he struggled against it, his breathing ragged and panicked, until the dread overwhelmed him. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think. The dry soil had begun to fracture, thin veins in the flesh of the valley floor. It was eerily beautiful, Shale thought, as if the canyon were transforming before him. He wished he could have looked longer at it.

The darkness rose to meet him, consume him, and Shale gave it his permission.

He lay there for hours, left to waste away beneath the winter sun.

District 2 did not have emergency services or paramedics. Their doctors were field physicians and herbalists that had survived the war. When the earthquake subsided, they spread out across the harshly affected western part of the district, their supplies and attention spread thinly. The other casualties were left to themselves.

Luckily for Shale, the gods were in the Canyon with him.

There was a commotion and a distinctive, commanding voice delivering orders. A hand rummaged across Shale's body, through the collapsed canopy, as if it was trying to determine if the form beneath was human. There was a gasp of surprise.

Within seconds, the blackness was peeled back and replaced with harsh, blinding sunlight. Shale squinted into it, unable to identify or make out the features of the three mysterious shadows that stood before him. What was this? Was he alive?

The tallest of them nodded at his two accomplices, who promptly helped Shale to his feet. They offered him water, which he gulped down greedily and without a moment's thought. It ran down his chin and onto his grubby tunic, emphasizing the state of its unforgivable filth.

Shale coughed and spluttered, his chest heaving as it filled up with air for the first time in hours. From the corner of his eye, he saw corpses strewn across the valley.

"Who are you?" he panted.

The shadow's dark eyes burned like coal.

"My name is Crixus. I am here to help you."

Slowly, Shale's sight adjusted, and the silhouette sharpened and was realized.

Crixus was a tall, hale man with a serious aura about him. He had a square face with a pointed chin, a bulbous nose, and thin lips. His eyes were pit-black but shimmered as the bottom of a well did. Tufts of short, red hair sprouted from a receding hairline hidden beneath a tattered cap. He nodded at his two helpers.

"Put him with the others. We're heading back."

It was a quarter-day's journey on foot to Marbletown from Sunfair. Luckily, Shale and his captors sped down the district paths in an armored vehicle. It kicked up waves of dust and pebbles as they tore along the ancient highways.

Shale pressed his nose up against the cool, stained window, and admired the sprawling landscape of mountains. The engine revved joyfully, as if it knew.

A wrought black iron gate guarded the entrance to the barracks near the Fort. On either side of the barrier, a limestone sculpture of Panem's eagle had been erected.

They stood proud and resolute, enormous wings spread aloft. Shale looked up at them with adoring eyes. As a child, he dreamed that he could fly. Just like they could.

The car stopped. Shale was escorted out by a short, muscled woman. Her broken-toothed smile was not reassuring, but it was the first hint of comfort that Shale had been privy to in a long time, and so he did not turn from it immediately.

She walked heavy-footed, he noticed, and thus he began to mimic her large, solid strides. This was not lost on the rest of the party, who began sniggering. Shale blushed and stopped. Their laughter only made him withdraw into himself again.

As they went further into the blockade, Shale noticed the wary, distrustful eyes of the budding Peacekeepers. Half of them could not have been much older than him.

The other, older half looked world-weary; their baggy eyes wrought with hunger. Drunk veteran soldiers with missing limbs called out at him with slurred words.

"Get a body bag ready, lads!"

"He's a pretty one!"

"You the new whore, boy?"

Shale let their words turn to dust and float on the wind, as his father had taught.

Inside Crixus' quarters, Shale felt his breath taken from him. He examined the busts and artwork that adorned the walls and ebony cabinets. The pillars, tables and stairs were hewed from obsidian, breccia, and gabbro. He lovingly gazed upon the masterful portraits of district heroes. They inspired Shale, and made him proud.

Above Crixus' desk and nameplate, Shale assessed an acrylic painting of a young man and woman, arm in arm, thrusting a flag into the dirt as they roared at a blood-red sky. There was no formal identification of either the artist or their subjects.

He reached out to touch it, heart racing, his fingers just about to graze the canvass.

A deep voice rose from behind him.

"Do you know who they are?"

He spun around. Crixus loomed above him, his eyebrows raised in questioning.

Shale's mouth opened and closed a half-dozen times. He pressed his lips together, blushed furiously, and shook his head. The older man nodded sagely, as if he had expected this, and approached the artwork himself. His harsh exterior melted away.

"Their names were Colman and Danica Florent. War prodigies. Natural combatants and brilliant tacticians wasted on a fruitless, treasonous cause." Crixus' eyes shone as he recounted this. "The Florents were among the first in the district to secede from the Capitol."

"They were rebels," Shale said slowly.

"Correct."

Shale felt his neck flush with heat. "And you're honoring them?"

"It is important to note the fine line between honor and remembrance," said Crixus pointedly. "The Florents led their merry band of traitorous allies to an almost-certain death. They fought, grossly outnumbered, as a part of the Last Defense at the Mountain Fortress. It was the final war campaign. We knew. It would be the deciding battle of the Dark Days."

"You were there?"

"I was. The entire District 2 Peacekeeper force was there. It was the day that the rebels were cast down and the glory and honor of the nation prevailed. For the district, it was the end of a dozen formerly renowned bloodlines. Abbott. Cresterfell. Florent, of course. Do you know where they are now?"

Shale knew. The entire district did. "Gone."

"Gone. Their entire offspring and extended family executed by firing squad."

Crixus looked at Shale, as if weighing him up.

"And that is why I have their portrait here, above my desk. As a reminder of the war that nearly wiped humanity from the annals of history. A reminder that, even with all the gifts the gods can bestow, we must choose the right path. It will not be laid out before our feet."

"I understand."

"Sir."

"I understand, sir."

Crixus stared at him fixedly. "If you're going to last here, lying will not serve."

"I'm not a liar," Shale said, his cheeks burning. "You saved all of us. That quake, it wasn't an accident. The mountains sent it for me. It was fate, and that's the truth."

Crixus considered him for a long moment. "You know of the mountain spirits?"

"Of course," he replied. "My ancestors worshiped them."

Shale was not sure how much he wanted to talk about them. He didn't want to have to delve too deeply into the tribes' history, which had been bloody and sad.

The desperate measures to which the mountain tribes had resorted – incest and abduction and forced marriages – to maintain their skewed sense of blood purity had been drastic. The Capitol saved them and Shale's family had bred their women with district men. There was no shame in it. The only alternative was far worse.

"What is your family name?" Crixus asked him, taking a seat.

"Cotter."

"That is a quarry name, not a clan one."

Crixus' tone was dismissive, reductive, and its sharpness almost made Shale recoil.

"My lineage is through my mother's side," he explained. "My father is – was – from Sunfair. He wasn't much, but he was a good man, and a patriot. Everything he did, he did for us."

To his complete and utter surprise, Crixus did not question him. Instead, he smiled.

"Have a seat, boy."

"I'm not boy. My name is Shale."

Crixus laughed. "You think you've earned the right to a name? You're not even a half minute out the slave pits and you want to run the country." He leaned in towards Shale, who got a nasty smell of raw onions from his breath. "Let me tell you something, recruit. I've been running the Peacekeeper training camp for over ten years. You aren't above us. Every man here is a part of a cohesive because we are born to serve. 'Individuality is the death of duty'. Do you know that means, little boy?" asked Crixus.

"I don't know, sir."

"Have a guess."

Shale considered the phrase for a moment. "That we can't let our personality rule us."

Crixus observed him over his thick, fat fingers. "And why not?"

"Because… Panem doesn't belong to me. Or you. We have to think of everyone."

"Exactly," said Crixus. "Do you think you can speak for Panem, boy?"

Shale thought about it. He knew his beliefs. His own values. The conviction that he had in the Capitol. The hatred in his heart was black and barbed and toxic, but it was reserved for a largely extinct part of today's society. Besides that, he didn't want to take responsibility for the rest of the district. Or any of the others.

"No," he whispered.

Crixus put a hand on his shoulder. "You're only just beginning to learn. Don't be hard on yourself. Your time to serve, and how you serve, will reveal itself."

He stood up and motioned for Shale to leave.

"In the meantime, keep your head down and don't ask questions."

Shale nodded. His body ached with fatigue, but he did not dare ask for rest.

Luckily, Crixus seemed to read his mind.

"Go get some sleep, recruit. Your training starts tomorrow."

And it did – in earnest.

Shale shared a bunk room with a handful of other boys that Crixus had rescued from across the district. They made up a squad, albeit a dysfunctional one. In lieu of their birth names, they each received a 'barrack title'. There was Bullseye, so named for his impeccable aim and long-range firearm record. The only girl, Mantis, lured you in with her pouty lips and prominent bust and then slipped you into a choke hold so tight that you begged for release. And then, there was Biter. He was – well, it went without saying. They kept away from him.

The early Peacekeeper boot camp, before the Snow regime interfered, was not comfortable. As a matter of fact, it was a harsh, ruthless existence – too harsh for some, who scuttled back to the hells they'd come from, never to be heard from or sought after again. The choice was always theirs to make, but abject poverty seemed a regression, a slip back into chaos, and so few chose it over a full belly with extra bruises. You got what you fought for and nothing less. Shale learned to steal, fight, and lie for his supper. It was better than a hollow belly.

If Crixus knew what they were doing, he didn't discourage it.

At the start, Shale considered slipping out in the middle of the night. But where would he go? Sunfair was a grim prospect, unevolved from the grim underbelly of its once glorious status. The fear of a lonely, unacknowledged death in the wilderness prevented any true plan from formulating. Instead, he spent his nights peering out at the distant mountain pass. Shale wondered what lay beyond it.

He didn't get time to think. Training was rigorous. Crixus pulled some strings, drew in contacts from his time as a soldier and somehow got the district's victor in to teach, too. Lessons consisted of two main disciplines: physical and academic. Most of the students excelled at one or the other; the robust, hard, aggressive recruits that could wipe you out with a single blow. The bookish, quiet boys destined for the Capitol, that ate up information as if it were real, tangible food.

Not one of them could compete with Shale in either category.

He was good at everything. The instructors' favorite. Crixus' golden child. He grew to be courteous and obedient, with gumption and guile and an impressive record in the classroom. But besides that, he was wholly dedicated to his craft. Shale was the first up at the crack of dawn, meditating and warming up before the others had even pulled on their socks. He was fast, surpassing his peers in the track sprint and edging them out in the yearly obstacle course.

Crixus was grooming him to be his protege. The next in a great line of Peacekeepers, as dear to him as his own sons. In some ways, even more so.

This didn't make Shale popular. It earned him dirty looks and made him the target of pranks and smear campaigns.

Like dust in the wind, Shale would tell himself. You are stronger than this.

And he was strong. By gods, he was strong. His frail frame from his days in slavery had swollen into bulging biceps and a beautifully toned body. There were few girls accepted into the barracks at the start – the interspersed succession of femme fatale victors during the second decade of the Games changed minds in that regard. But whenever Shale and the others were granted permission to hit up the taverns, he was lavished with ogling and flirting and undivided attention from ladies and girls (and not a few men). Shale entertained them. He wasn't cruel, he just didn't want to humiliate them by expressing his unequivocal disinterest.

Shale had never thought of himself as… well, he wasn't sure what the textbook definition was. He'd heard other words, of course. Queer. Sword-stabber. Fairy. They were always said snidely, cruelly, and always in a context of subjugation and anger. He was confused, because he didn't take a liking to girls – but he didn't warm to boys, either. It was only ever in the company of one man that his skin flushed hot and an elaborate knot tied itself in his stomach.

Across the six years of his education, Shale's romantic intent took on a new form in the shape of Telemachus Folami. As a frequent mentor and inspirational figure to future Peacekeepers, it seemed he was always at the barracks. And, in his defense, Shale didn't love the man straight away. Gods, no. That was silly and awful.

It began with admiration.

An all-encompassing appreciation for a man that had swept into the ruins of Shale's broken life and made it seem salvageable. Telemachus' background had been similarly complex. He had fought and earned the respect he had. Shale wanted that. He needed - no, he had to - believe in it. For his own good.

Before long, his feelings began to spiral out of control, resulting in a new sensation that resembled attraction, worship and not a touch of obsession. If Telemachus noticed, he did not make it obvious. This drove Shale wild. He desired the victor's approval and feared his rebuke in equal measure.

Crixus noticed. The victor's sudden interest in the boy's skill. Their 'solo sessions'. Clandestine whispers at break times.

They were planning something.

He knew that Telemachus was not so inclined, but the boy's alternative preferences posed a problem. Yes, to a degree, in its more explicit terms. Crixus didn't like it. It wasn't... natural. And a danger to the rest of the camp. And on top of that, it was Shale's desperate, naive emulation of the victor. He couldn't act like it didn't worry him. What if Folami provided him with a greater power than Crixus could? What if they, gods forbid, replaced him? The paranoia buzzed in his mind as if it were a hive of wasps.

Until, one night, Crixus' suspicions were confirmed. Shale came to his office and slide a thick bundle of paperwork in his direction.

"And what's this?" Crixus had asked.

Shale didn't falter. "My discharge papers. I'm leaving at the end of the summer."

"And where will you go, exactly?"

"I'm going to work with Mr. Folami," Shale said. A hint of pink tinged his cheeks. "To do an apprenticeship under him. I think it's the right thing to do.

Crixus was incensed. The boy's lack of gratitude and loyalty made him furious. Crixus tried to maintain his composure. "I picked your sorry behind out of that valley, not Telemachus Folami. Or do you not remember?"

Shale shook his head. "I'm sorry, Captain. This is what I want to do."

And with that, he left, leaving an enraged Crixus by himself.

In his office, alone, he desperately tried to think of a way to separate them.

Shale was a Peacekeeper, first and foremost. Crixus' very best.

He was going to enforce the law one day. He was a boy, no, a man, meant to be a leader. Not run around playing teacher and student like a besotted schoolgirl.

And yet the more Crixus thought about it, within the solitary confines of his quarters, a strange, deadly thought crept into the crevasses of his mind.

It would float from the abyss and flicker for a time, weaving a spider's web of plots until he had to put his endless stack of paperwork aside.

No, it's not right, Crixus thought. We must not put ourselves above he law.

As he got up to leave his quarters and head to bed for the night, Crixus turned to the portrait of the Florents. The bloodied sky seemed to light up as their cries of revolution tore across the evening air.

Without a sound, he stepped over to his phone and dialed a number.

After a moment, there was an answer.

"Mr. Mayor? This is Crixus Thread. I apologise for the late call. May I have a moment?"

**

A year later, the square in Marbletown was smothered in a grim silence, organized into a sad collection of young people and their guardians – like as not, many of their parents were dead. An overcast day looked down on gaunt and bruised children shuffling aimlessly into their segregated pens, the demoralized adults dragging themselves to the side lines with tight lips and red eyes. The Hunger Games had not played favorites. Only one of theirs had ever come back.

The cameras clicked on. They were perched atop the buildings like vultures, giant mechanic bats that swung mechanically to and fro. Some of them rolled along the tarmacadam for close ups, others were attached to drones that buzzed overhead like mosquitoes. They perfectly caught the people's fear. After all, it was their job.

The district's upper class – the mayor, Capitol ambassadors, construction investors – were seated upon the reaping stage. They exchanged pleasantries, shook hands, commented on the weather. It's not been a good run for us, said the snotty wife of one engineer or another, with as much competitive spirit as she could muster. Those with children patted nervously at their sweaty foreheads – they knew as well as anyone that even without tesserae, their little ones were more at risk of being targets of a 'thorn in the side', a statement reaping or consequence.

Their designated escort, Domitia Sparrow, provided a welcome distraction. Her hair was a glittering silver, her eye makeup dark and bold. A shiny, cement-like contour glistened on her cheekbones and she wore a metallic jumpsuit with large shoulder pads. Atop her head was a bulky, jewel-encrusted hard hat. It was an utterly bizarre look and did little to comfort the female tribute, a greasy-haired and scowling crafter's daughter, who just looked stricken.

"Let's all give a big round of applause to your female representative this year, Tyla Stone!"

There was a scattering of limp, half-hearted applause. Domitia's spirits seemed to deflate, too.

"Are there any volunteers?"

It was a mandatory question and a predictable silence followed. Tyla began to weep.

Domitia tried to move past the general lack of enthusiasm and slid on over to the boy's bowl.

"Now, to find out who will join her! How exhilarating. The male tribute for District 2 is…"

She thrust her hand into the container. In the crowd, Crixus avoided the Mayor's eye line.

"Shale Cotter!"

A ripple went through the crowd. The students of the barracks exchanged confused looks.

"Where are you, dear?"

Shale ascended the stage, fit and formal in his cotton shirt and brown slacks, his dark hair ruffled in the summer breeze. Domitia gently groped him, squeezing his bicep and grabbing his shoulders. Shale's mouth tensed, a vein in his temple twitching. His hands curled into fists, although his annoyance seemed to ebb away as he comforted the little girl onstage with him. He whispered something into her ear, and she gave a little hiccup of amusement.

Behind him, though Shale did not know it, the district's only victor had begun to think.

After his return from the arena five summers ago, Telemachus was a figure shrouded in mystery. He silently wandered the district at the start of spring, his expensive car shuttling him from the shantytowns at the foot of the Fort to the half-empty quarries and the tree houses within the Bare Forests. He visited orphanages and foster homes, brothels, and pubs. Each time, without fail, he left empty-handed but appearing rather content. Nobody knew what his mission was, but it was clear that he had emerged from the arena with more than a crown.

It was with the same sense of purpose that he swept into the Justice Building.

On his way, he met Crixus.

The man stood outside the entrance to the farewell room, looking crestfallen and uncertain. Telemachus had seen people kill – he knew guilt when he saw it.

"Telemachus –"

"I don't want to hear anything from you, Thread. You think I don't have contacts near the mayor? Near you? A victor's wallet goes very, very deep." His eyes burned, the intensity striking Crixus into silence. "I don't know how you got away with fixing a reaping, but I tell you now, it's treason. And you know the penalty."

Crixus was horrified. "I didn't –"

"Luckily for you," said Telemachus. "I need something from you. In return, I won't leave you to the authorities… unpleasantness."

"What is it?" whispered Crixus.

"I want your recruits."

"But –"

"All of them. As of the Victory Tour, you will send any child of reaping age to me. They are mine, do not forget, and I will come to collect my due. Mark my words."

Crixus was at a checkmate. He knew the power that Telemachus wielded.

"Yes, sir."

"Now go, and do not bother us," Telemachus ordered.

**

Several moments later, Shale stood up as Telemachus entered the room.

His heart was hammering against his ribs. If he had not been in shock, he might have admired his mentor's passionate gaze, his chiseled jaw, as he usually did.

Instead, he held out his hand.

"Mr. Folami, sir. It's an honour to be your mentee."

"Sit down," said Telemachus. "I need to figure out what I'm going to do with you."

A bit taken aback by his lack of warmth; Shale resumed a place on the couch.

"I know how to fight –"

"Yes, I'm aware. We all saw what you could do at the barracks."

An airy, light feeling swelled inside Shale's chest. He held back a smile. "You did?"

"Of course. You're good."

"Thank you, sir."

"Be honest. Do you think you can win?"

The frankness and uncertainty behind the question took Shale by surprise. He was the best recruit in his age unit, after all.

"Yes, I think so," he said, a tremor of doubt clinging to his voice. Telemachus heard it.

"It takes more to be a victor than it does a Peacekeeper, as dear old Crixus knows."

Shale was frustrated and slightly hurt at the insinuation of his inadequacy, as if his years of preparation and training had all been for naught.

"How can I win, then? Teach me."

Telemachus sighed. "It's not that simple. You have it in you or you don't."

"So, how can I be ready?" he asked.

"You can't. You're as prepared as you can be. The Games will reveal the rest."

"Reveal what?"

"Whether you're a victor or not."

Shale felt as if he'd been sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit.

"Am I going to die?" he asked.

"The only certain death is the one you believe to be imminent," said Telemachus.

"Please," Shale begged. "Tell me what to do."

Telemachus looked out across the district from the sill. "Ever since my victory, I have sought to remove the corruption within District 2. To illustrate how the actions of a few malcontents would not reduce us to a debased, instinctual form of what was once the best of humanity.

I have plans, Shale. Important plans. To convert children of dishonourable blood from their parents' ideals. To lead them down the right road. Not just those trapped by their parents' foolishness, but those who remained loyal and still lost everything, as I did. Until the Capitol saved me, of course. As hard as it was, I had to look past my own bias to achieve this realisation. If you are successful, as I think you can be, we will provide the district a new generation of youth. One that will not let their country down."

He turned to Shale; his eyes were as passionate as he'd ever seen them.

"I will ask of you what I have asked all my tributes. Are you willing to help me make that future a reality?"

A shiver ran through Shale's body. Whether it was love or fear, or both, he couldn't tell.

"Yes, sir."

Telemachus smiled. "I'm glad to hear it."

He began to lead Shale out of the room, before stopping abruptly.

"Oh, before we continue, I am implored to say this: for the duration of the Games, you must put your personal feelings for me aside. As well as being inappropriate, they are a distraction."

Shale went a deep red. "I don't –"

"Please. I don't have time for silly protestations. What you do with the sword in your pants matters less to me than how you use a knife in the arena. I want a victor, not a lover. Understand?"

Shale blinked back tears.

"Yes, sir."

As they departed for the city, the high-speed train sped them past and over the mountain ranges from Shale's childhood. Up close, they were less beautiful. Ugly and blemished and covered in crags and cracks, lumps and bumps. Shale frowned. How could he have ever thought them to be so glorious? They were disappointing.

From that day on, everything was disappointing.

By the time they got to the Capitol, and for a long time after, Shale's heartbreak manifested itself in other ways.

It was the half-mad way in which he killed the boy from District 8 with his bare hands.

It was his cold reaction to the news of Crixus Thread's resignation. And later, his suicide.

It was in how he always treated his former mentor with the utmost respect and diplomacy.

His consorts, boyfriends, whores... they all bore a similarity to a certain victor. It only fuelled the vicious rumours and salacious gossip, to which Shale paid no heed.

He lived the rest of his life as a teacher, mentor, and – famously – a bachelor.

Upon his death, Shale's peers and friends lamented; he had been wealthy and handsome. Men and women lined up at his feet. He could've had his pick of the litter, so inexhaustible were his romantic options. What had stopped him from settling down?

But, as Shale knew, and as history had proven time and time again...

There is nothing more powerful than hope.


	8. Fen

When the metal platform lifted him up and into the arena, Fen had to thank the gods.

They've brought me home, he thought, as the pedestal locked into place with a sharp click.

The thunderous roar of the Capitol crowd was soft and distant beneath the canopy of long, thick pine trees. The forest floor was a mangled mess of undergrowth – wet moss and enormous ferns, rotted logs, and wicked thistle bushes. Beyond the branches, the audience hunched and craned their necks, desperate to get a proper eye on the quivering tributes. The twenty-four children encircled the generously gifted array of weapons that Games enthusiasts had nicknamed the Cornucopia. Only the more perceptive players noticed the hint of sand, the stray pebble and mortar, that indicated that the arena had simply gotten a makeover.

Fen's familiarity and comfort in his surroundings did not last long. The forest was an illusion. He had been fooled, for a moment, by the cool, open air. A cricket's musical chirp. The flash of a mockingjay's wing. But then, upon closer inspection, it struck him. He saw it in the low-lying fog that crept slowly across the woods, as a lynx would stalk an unsuspecting fawn. He heard it in the howls that called back and forth, hungry and furious and from every direction.

He felt like a fox, curled up in its hiding hole, right before the hunters smoked him out.

And not for the first time.

**

Prior to the invasion, the landmass of District 7 was made up of what were once the North American states of Washington and Oregon. The floods, quakes and hurricanes of the Catastrophes had whittled the populous and forced them inland, where they set up their small, tribal communities. For a time, they co-existed in peace and looked after one another.

And then, from the east, they came.

The conquerors. They poured out of the mountain face like beetles made of metal and fire. Their appetite for control and domination was insatiable, and ruin followed them. The tree-hamlets burned, the moats were razed, the farmland scorched. Despite their best efforts, the tribal kings and queens could not resist the relentless onslaught. And so, they were slain and executed, their allies and kin made into slaves, the old ways discarded and replaced.

But not forgotten.

Fen was descended from those men, the tree-kings, that had founded a land named in their own tongue, but which the colonizers called District 7. He was raised to take pride in his lineage, to pay homage to it, and practise the old speech – but in private, always in private, where no malevolent ears could hear. At night, as his mother cooed him to sleep, Fen would dream of how things used to be, and he would pray for the day that his ancestor's land would be restored to him.

When the war broke out, Fen's father, a deeply political man, ensured that Fen and his brother understood their stance. They would not slink away into the woods, claiming pacifism in place of fear, as the cowardly goddess-cult had done. The Kavanaghs would support the resistance. However, at the end, they did not want a republic. A claim to one-thirteenth of Panem? No, they wanted their country back, nothing more. Nothing less.

"This is our land," he had told them. "Ours. Don't ever let anyone tell you any different.

Always remember."

Of course, none of it had mattered. District 13 was decimated, and the Capitol had won.

The Kavanaghs paid the price of betting on the wrong side.

Fen's mother was executed for harbouring, feeding and healing rebel soldiers under her roof. His father became an exterminator, a pawn sent out to hunt, locate and dispose of surplus muttations that had made a comfy home for themselves in the abundant woods and forests of the district.

During a misty morning in January, he brushed up against a low-lying tracker-jacker nest. He survived, somehow, by fleeing into a nearby lake, but he was unrecognizable in both body and mind, reduced to a vegetative state and a mere ghost of his former self.

After that, Fen's eldest brother Rowan was taken and sent in to replace their father.

He didn't come back.

Fen kept his father alive for six months after that, spoon-feeding him crushed berries, grubs and rainwater that he collected in an old, stained bucket. It was hard work, foraging and digging in the dirt for a semblance of a meal, but not as hard as forcing his father's jaw open in order to coax a pitiful dinner down his throat. Despite his wounded pride, he didn't resist.

Until, one sunny summer morning, during breakfast, he batted away Fen's hand with a limp wrist and gentle hand. Fen stared fixedly into his father's eyes, which were alight with desperation. Mr. Kavanagh's mouth opened, and a gurgling noise emerged from his throat. As his cracked and trembling lips formed the words, he mustered up the lucidity to speak.

"Please, Fen."

He knew. Fen took a pillow from the bed, lifted it over his father's face, and pressed down.

There was a slight struggle, a reflexive jerk, and then a stillness – one that Fen never forgot.

He buried his father by himself, in an unmarked grave in the forest behind their cottage.

**

A year passed, and Fen grew older. As his world changed, and he grew more independent, he began to settle into his features. His growth spurt lent itself to his knobbly knees and lanky arms. He had youthful, elvish features, sparkling green eyes and a mess of curly brown locks. His muscles had developed from lugging heavy bags of firewood after him and climbing trees – he wasn't District 2 muscle, or an agriculture giant from 11, but he was strong in his way.

One evening, Fen had begun to light a fire in the scorched and ashy hearth, when there was a knock at the door. That in itself was curious. He had never had visitors – the Peacekeepers hadn't even been around, although the census time was at the end of the year. Fen was dreading it, as he didn't know how he was going to explain his situation to the authorities.

When he went to answer the visitor, he found a group of older, sterner men facing him.

There was a brief pause, where Fen waited for them to speak.

"Can I help you?" he asked, realising the onus was on him.

"Hello, son. Does a Fen Kavanagh live here?"

Fen leaned against the doorframe, trying to look tough. "You're speaking to him."

There was an awkward silence, and several of the men exchanged confused glances.

"He's too young," piped up a burly-looking man from the back.

Fen rolled his eyes. "Fen was my Da's name, too, if that's any help?"

A man at the front, who must have been their leader, smiled. "Greetings, Fen. My name is Connifer. Is your father around?"

"He's dead."

For the second time, the group looked bewildered. Connifer raised an eyebrow.

"Dead?"

"As a doornail."

"How?"

Fen scowled. "Does it matter?"

"I suppose not," Connifer muttered to himself.

Fen stood up straight. "What did you want to speak to him about?"

"It's grown men talk."

"I'm grown," huffed Fen. "Kept everything alright here for a year with no help."

Connifer smiled again. "Right you are. In that case, maybe we can interest you?"

"With what?"

"May we come in?" Connifer asked. "Trust me, we'll explain everything."

They did.

As the country rebuilt, industrialisation had exploded. Across the nation, quotas soared, and District 7 slid back into poverty and hunger. The paper mills and lumber factories thrummed and roared with the sound of production, facing the brunt of the ruthless demands of a nation that needed to rise from the ashes of conflict.

President Thorn's Ten-Year Plan put enormous pressure on the heavy industry districts – masonry, lumber, transportation, coalmining – in order to form the skeleton of the new Panem. It was, as predicted, a success for the Capitol. They applauded and praised their President for his economic ingenuity, as the districts' earth and stone were tilled and stained with blood, their Justice Buildings and Tesserae Halls erected on the emaciated, rotting corpses of labourers.

Many districts did not kindle flames of resistance, already beaten into a sorry submission.

District 7, on the other hand… well, in the lumber district, fire catches quickly.

For Thorn, a problem had arisen – since the beginning of the new order, District 7 had found comfort in their faith. Many worshipped an ancient earth goddess; from whose loins the universe had sprung forth. Danu, the First Mother, watched over them. It was a laughable concept to most of the materialistic and worldly Capitol, but it gave District 7 a source of hope. From hope came ideas, and from ideas came action. Action led to war.

Thorn's first attempt at a solution was to issue a blanket ban on nature worship. This backfired badly. He had underestimated the deep-rooted nature of the Danuist's faith, which had kept the natives neutral during the war. In contrast, the Godsmen had risen up during the rebellion, but a swift demonstration on the consequences of sedition meant that they now proved no threat, and the less-than-zealous traditionalists evaded the law with no penalties.

As a result, tensions begin to arise between the two parties and sectarian conflict was slowly on the rise. The Danuists viewed the Godsmen as brutes that received special treatment from the state, and the Godsmen viewed the Danuists as cowards who abandoned their country.

The government's attempt to oppress the Danuists had set off a butterfly effect in District 7.

A harshly anti-religious regime was met with an unanticipated level of resistance. In the province of Greenspear, a radical outlaw group emerged. They called themselves the Seven Sons. The brotherhood comprised of banished sons of different faiths. The reason behind their excommunication varied from man to man and differed in extremity, from petty theft to criminal violence. The motives and morality of the Brothers were debatable. To protect the disenfranchised. To steal from the rich and give to the poor. To be a particularly troublesome pebble in the Capitol's shoe. Each of those reasons was right, and each of them were wrong.

Beyond anything, the Seven Sons had one true goal – to unite District 7 under one banner, regardless of faith, as it had been in the days of old before the Capitol had colonized them.

And while their success in that matter was not close to completion, it could not be denied that the people of the district highly valued their protection during times of religious persecution.

While it was true that the Peacekeepers had more firepower, they couldn't shoot what they couldn't find, and the Seven Sons were masters of stealth and adept at guerrilla warfare. They operated only at night, stealing into the homes of wealthy landlords and robbing them for the rich, nutritious food that the poor, starving peasants had been deprived of for so long. The brotherhood kept the people of Greenspear fed through their refusal to be intimidated.

Within the confines of his decadent mansion, Thorn watched it all unfold with baleful eyes.

District 7 had them at a stalemate. The Treaty of Treason's dull, convoluted rules made a military bombardment impossible. Thorn longed to revise it and edit it accordingly. Alas, it was a sensitive point for the current government, who tried to intercept him at every turn. He had led the country in, through and out of a war. He had eliminated the last rebel factions in Hodharbour, established a competent tesserae scheme. Thorn should've earned his peer's respect.

Now, their egos could lead Panem into a district civil war. For as long as District 7 felt oppressed by the Capitol, the lumberjacks would not secede true defeat. They were a proud bunch, and their loyalty to their gods (or she-god) was still strong. No matter how hard you hit them, if they had faith and unity, they would regroup and get back on their feet. However, the district's unshakeable spirituality was also the chink in their armour. The mutual tension that existed among the two religious factions had not relaxed and Thorn wouldn't waste it.

The President used their hatred as an incendiary, ensuring that District 7 stayed divided.

Connifer let out a deep, tired sigh. "We had them at the start, when they didn't expect us, but now… they're way ahead of the game."

"Ahead? How?"

"Thorn's men – his imposters – are feigning collusion with the Sons. They pretend to be members, offer people help, then arrest or execute those that accept. Nobody trusts us. Or, at least, they won't have us as an ally anymore. It's not worth the risk. Not in this climate."

"So, what? You're giving up?" Fen asked, somewhat angrily.

"No," retorted Connifer, his eyes sharp and alert. "We're recruiting. That's why we're here. Your father. We heard, through our old sources, that he was sympathetic to the cause."

Fen shook his head. "If he was, he didn't tell us."

"I see." He adjusted his cloak fastener. His nails were filthy and chipped. "Say, how old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"You climb trees?"

"Better than anyone I know," Fen admitted, though he did not know many people.

"And how's your axe arm?"

Fen shrugged. "Not bad. I used to help my Da and brother, and I cut my own firewood. Why?"

"You fancy joining us? We can always do with scouts. Might even have a hatchet for you."

Outside, it had begun to rain. A light, trickling shower, perfect for a warm summer's day. Fen stared at this man, and his henchmen, with their thick beards and long, unkempt hair. He listened to them grumbling and swearing under their breath, impatient and temperamental. He looked at their shabby, stolen, dishevelled clothes, splashed with mud and covered in detritus.

Then, he found himself glancing towards the back of the house, past its walls, at the grave that lay beyond.

Fen had his answer. "I'm sorry. I can't."

For a moment, Connifer didn't respond. Then, he let out a laugh. "Alright then. Sorry for bothering you, kid." He put a hand on Fen's shoulder. "I hope you get dealt a better hand than your Da."

The older man barked an order at his underlings, and they began to disperse, complaining.

Fen watched them go. When they had left, he was by himself in the house, with only the now-smouldering embers and the tippity-tap of falling rain to keep him company. And it was there, as the four walls closed around him, that Fen realized the truth: he was all alone in the world, but more than that – he was very, very lonely.

A minute later, he was sprinting down the forest path, a hastily packed bindle in his hand.

Connifer and his men were waiting to greet him at the end of the road, smiling expectantly.

For four years, Fen adopted the position of scout. It was up to him to blend in amongst the peasantry and noblemen. He infiltrated the logtowns and houses of worship, always with a different name and a different story. He made connections. He sought information – but its extraction had to be subtle, careful. If the laymen grew suspicious, they would not hesitate to act out. And so, he blended in, assimilating amongst the rabble, listening and waiting for the right opportunity. When it arose, he scrambled on back to Connifer, relaying what he'd heard and learned, and they would use their findings to mostly steal food and money from rich folk.

After some time, Fen was trusted in the organisation of reconnaissance missions. He was a nimble, sturdy fellow, quick on his feet and even quicker at thinking on the spot. Before long, Fen was a natural liar, and could spin a story to get himself out of any sticky situation. He grew quite attached to his strange comrades – Aster the Archer, whose proficiency with a bow meant that he needed no surname. There was Jon of Kettlelake, a strong, rambling man that spoke in poems and riddles. The Nurse, whose bitter herbal restoratives left you reeling. And most interestingly, Bryony Blackwood, the only woman. A witch, she perceived coming events in animal intestines and claimed to have unusual, prophetic dreams about the future.

One night, as they sang around a roaring campfire and gorged themselves on wild rabbit, Bryony leaned toward Fen and brought her lips to his ear, all broken teeth and flying spittle.

"You are marked for death, sapling," she croaked. "Your sentence will be your saviour."

Fen, a sworn realist and firm disbeliever in any form of magic, ignored her. The false witch was only there for two reasons: to massage Connifer's superstitious nature and to massage the other mens' inherent nature during the longest and coldest of the dark, cruel winter nights.

If he had not been a bull-headed, narrow-minded young man, overly secure in his abilities and emboldened by the group of men that enabled his worst impulses, Fen might've taken it more seriously.

But, alas, he did not. At least, not until later.

As the others slept, Fen was on guard duty, nestled sleepily into the small nook of a tree. He curled into it, lovingly, as if it were his mother's embrace. His bushy eyebrows were furrowed sternly in slumber – or, at least, he appeared to be resting. His breath came in smooth, gentle waves that filled up his chest and belly.

But, if one looked closely, they could see it. The same tell-tale signs that always gave him away in this particular performance. The slight flicker of an eyelid, the fox-like perk of his ears.

In the distance, a twig snapped.

Fen slid down the tree with an effortless ease and hit the ground with a soft thud.

Heshook his peers awake and peered out into the darkness.

"Hello?"

There was no response.

As if sensing danger, Connifer sat up immediately. "All of you, move out."

Nobody needed telling twice. The others swept away and disappeared into the dusk.

Fen, however, didn't budge. "I'm not leaving."

"Don't be a fool. I told you to go," snapped Connifer.

"No. If there's something there, I can fight."

"I said –"

"Connifer!"

There was a whistle, a flash, and before Fen could run, a thick, yellow fog had risen around him. His eyes drooped, his limbs sagged, and his mind began to numb under the sedative.

It's a sleeping agent, he thought, as he drifted far, far away. They don't want us dead.

When he awoke, Fen tasted blood.

He had a pounding headache, and his hands were bound. He was in a cell.

As it happened, this particular cell belonged to a shoddy and poorly constructed gaol, purposely built in the most crime-rampant and poverty-stricken parts of Greenspear. There was a great number of these here, and by no mere accident – it was the Peacekeepers themselves who needed a reason to patrol in the parts of town where the seediest brothels and noisiest taverns were located. District 7 was a place of fierce faith, but you cannot have piety without the proximity of sin, and Greenspear had that in spades… and then some.

Fen waited for days, and days, and days, until he began to demand the guards for information whenever they brought him his dry, mouldy bread and tepid water. They gave him nothing, as he suspected, and so as his energy began to wane, Fen brought his knees up to his chest and, as he often did, he began to speak to his loved ones. Ma. Da. Rowan. Con. What do I do?

This time, their voices were silent, and the only sound was the rattling of the guard's keys.

Fen looked up hopefully, and his captor snorted with laughter.

"Don't look so optimistic, tree-rat." The jailor's voice was a crisp District 2 accent. A bunch of them had been sent into District 7 during the war, Fen remembered. "You're only getting out for today on account of the reaping. Capitol is being extra strict on it this year, since some kids just don't seem to be showing up. You'll be back, though. And after that… well..."

He made a single, slicing motion across his neck. Fen fixed him with a hateful glare.

"I'd rather be dead than be you, sell-out," he spat. "Where's the man they brought in with me?"

The guard's cruel smile widened. "Oh, you mean your buddy? Tall, long hair?"

Fen said nothing, fearing the worst.

"Hanged him yesterday."

The air seemed to leave Fen's lungs. "You're lying."

"I got nothing to lie about, traitor." He leaned in. "Rumour has it, the executioner botched it. A long, painful death. Want my opinion?" He bared his teeth. "I wish it had lasted longer."

Fen, incensed, swung his cuffed hands at the Peacekeeper, who side-stepped him and returned the attempted blow with a strike from the painfully blunt end of his own baton.

"Now get out of here," he snarled. "I'll make sure I deliver you to the gallows tomorrow myself."

As fate would have it, he never got the chance.

A mere six hours later, with a toss of her long lavender locks, Io Pennyworth plucked her intricately tattooed hand from a large, transparent bowl, unfurled the piece of paper and squinted at the small, formal font printed upon it. She cleared her throat and read the name aloud, choosing to ignore the waves of hatred rolling from the scrawny girl next to her.

As Fen stepped up to the stage, he thought of Connifer, swaying from a rope in the breeze. He thought of his father, half-submerged in lake water as the last of the tracker-jackers drowned around him. He ignored his district partner's tears of fury and his escort's thinly veiled disgust and the crowd's undisguised pity and sheer relief that it wasn't them this time.

Bryony Blackwood's words came flooding back to him, a haunting voice from the past.

_Your sentence will be your saviour._

She was right.

It would be.

**

Suddenly, the announcer's voice, high-pitched and thunderous, blared out from around them. He rambled on, officiating the ceremonies and rattling off a long list of special guests and benefactors. At some point, President Thorn began to speak. He didn't need a microphone. The crowd stood in utter reverence of him, utterly silent and in awe of his booming voice.

Fen turned back to the game at hand. He couldn't be distracted. Not now. He had to focus.

 _Get it together Kavanagh,_ he told himself. _Look around you. What are you working with?_

Trees, trees and more trees. He could climb them, and hide, but would the Capitol even let him? Tributes had run and hidden before, but it was boring, and nobody wanted them to win.

As he was contemplating doing a runner, he saw it, glinting in the distance.

Not far from him, perhaps five metres or so, a dane axe was strewn on the grass. Fen recognized it. It was light, it was sharp, and it suited him perfectly. He just had to get to it – if he was fast enough. He believed he could make it, that he was faster than the others, but how could he know? The training centre had only let them display their raw power, of which only the lad from District 2 had shown a surprising – and suspicious – amount of natural ability.

As their host had begun the countdown, a handful of the tributes became visibly shaken. Without warning, there was a loud, wet retching noise as the waif of a girl from District 5 sprayed the ground with her breakfast. Her district partner, his eyes bulging and his skin clammy, began to twitch. He looked left, then right, and fled his pedestal without permission.

The crowd began to boo.

The boy from the power district made a dash for it. He darted across the arena, high on flighty adrenaline, his momentum driving him to the barrier that separated the tributes from the spectators. The watchers at the front screeched as the frothing, panting, weed of a child approached them, intent on leaping into the stands and escaping the arena on foot, no doubt.

He didn't make it far.

A minute later, his corpse was riddled with bullets, slumped and defeated in the grass.

Unfortunately, this abrupt and violent event sent the tributes into an unprecedented panic.

Most ran to arm themselves and began to mindlessly hack and slash at their nearest target, desperate to end the Games before the Peacekeepers could get another shot at them.

Others ran into the woods, where rows of sharp teeth and curved talons awaited them.

Interestingly, for the first time, a pair of unlikely cohorts formed a mutual agreement. As one dispatched an enemy, the other kept an eye on their back, ensuring nobody sneaked up on them. It was a sound and clever strategy, and within the hour, they began to count corpses.

"Someone is missing," said Four.

"Who?"

"District 7. The one that looks like a grasshopper."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I counted."

After a few moments' arguing, they wandered the grove, hunting the penultimate tribute.

The blond, slender boy from the fishing district hated the grove. His rogue, boyish beauty was diminished as he picked out shards of bone from his hair. His chest was splashed with fresh, glossy blood and despite a cool persona, he fought back tears. He had grown up surrounded by beaches and bonfires, so the dingy woodland was strange and foreign to him.

His ally, a quarrier's son, was a grunt and a bully, who made up for dim wits with big muscles. He had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, and wanted to end things quickly.

They moved through the dark as the audience watched them with bated breath.

"Where is he?" growled District 2.

District 4 shook his head. "I don't remember seeing him since the pedestals locked."

"Don't remember, or weren't looking?"

"Shut up."

"Who you telling to –"

"I mean it, be quiet. Do you hear that?"

"What?"

From a nearby tree, an owl mutt hooted.

Without hesitation, a figure in a large oak tree sprang to life, just as he had when his name was called at the reaping. A gap of about fifty feet separated him from the ground, but if it fazed him, he didn't show it. He slid down the tree trunk, quick as a squirrel yet quiet as a mouse. His smaller hands and feet were perfect for this; they scurried from branch to branch with dazzling ease, instinctively finding the appropriate knots and holds to help his descent.

District 2 heard a displacement of air, a slight ruffle of leaves, and with a scream, he stabbed blindly at the dark with the sword he held aloft in his large, coarse, violently shaking hands.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then, as if from out of nowhere, a dirty, elvish face appeared in front of them.

The boy was hanging onto the lowest branch by his knees, just beyond their reach.

In his hand, he held an axe.

"You," gasped Two.

Fen smiled.

"Yeah. Me."

**

Fen returned home, his execution postponed indefinitely, and his former crimes pardoned.

He didn't dare try to find the Seven Sons - he knew he was being watched, the President had told him as much. His status as a victor had not erased his past.

Unbeknownst to him, this surveillance was in part due to Thorn's worsening paranoia - the same paranoia that would lead to the beginning of the end for his career.

And so, Fen did the only thing he could do - he settled into the Victor's Village, spared his kindness when he could, and tried not to think about the nightmares.

His sense of humour, reliable nature and proclivity for solid advice made him the go-to person for incoming victors and tributes. In a way, Fen became the father figure that he had sought after since the death of. As a matter of fact, Fen often found himself in a dive bar in the Capitol's boho district, shushing and comforting a reluctant survivor on their inability to keep other, less fortuitous children alive for awfully long. He originated the 'Casket Cocktail', as it was later coined, the drink that a victor had when they lost their first tribute. Indeed, within the victor's circle, Fen was one of the few outlier victors who maintained a sense of normality through his newfound freedom (or, at least, the illusion of it).

Of course, in Thorn's Panem, that freedom bore a hefty fee, and Fen was used to paying it.

He paid it when he was summoned to identify his old brotherhood in a kangaroo court.

He paid it for each son and daughter of District 7 that he couldn't promise to bring home.

He paid it when he rejected the Careers. It was a fair proposal, promising even, but Fen refused to teach his people how to be murderers.

And yet, each time he was forced to pay an unthinkable price, his father's words reminded him of what was important.

_This is our land. Ours. Don't ever let anyone tell you any different. Always remember._

Fen hadn't forgotten. He would never forget.

And when the time came - and the people of District 7 banded together - the Capitol would remember too.


End file.
